


consequences

by peculiarpotato



Series: consequences [1]
Category: Among Us (Video Game)
Genre: Angst and Feels, Chapter Art, Complete, Gen, Gender-Neutral Pronouns, Interactive, Mystery, No use of y/n, Non-Graphic Violence, Plot Twists, Reader-Insert, censored profanity, not a crackfic, sfw, unrevealed roles
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-12
Updated: 2020-12-30
Packaged: 2021-03-13 22:34:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 29
Words: 65,789
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29036286
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/peculiarpotato/pseuds/peculiarpotato
Summary: [Outcomes of voting were determined by reader polls]You had never expected you would actually end up in space. It was a meme, a joke, but here you were. Now you’re stuck with a group of crewmates constantly at eachothers’ throats, who are definitely hiding something. You know what you also hadn’t expected? Murder.Now you are on this journey through space unable to trust anybody. As your crewmates are picked off one by one, will you and those who remain be able to catch the impostor(s); or will you be deceived and meet your end in the cold heart of space?
Series: consequences [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2131764
Comments: 2
Kudos: 3





	1. Introduction

__

_You can go ahead and skip this if you wish, but this might answer some questions._

This was originally posted on quotev.com, where the polls were held. I tried my best to transfer the formatting, but if something looks weird it is because of that. It’s backdated properly, but was actually published to Ao3 on January 28, 2021.

[Quotev link](https://www.quotev.com/story/13115173/consequences-%E0%B6%9E-among-us-reader/1)

Hello everyone, here it is, an among us themed fanfiction. And no, it’s not a crackfic actually. How on earth I managed to stretch a whole detailed plot out of this murder bean game with a small slice of lore I dunno, but here it is. 

Some notes:

Until the publication of the final chapter, this story was written anonymously. That is why you will not see the author replying to comments until the final chapter was published. I did read and appreciate each and every one, but I wanted to keep my identity a mystery until the end to see if anyone would find me.

This story was originally driven by polls. There were five polls, one after each emergency meeting or body report. With these polls, the readers were able to vote for who they thought the impostor was, or choose to skip. The results of this vote would be what the reader’s character voted for, and oftentimes would end up aligning with the other crewmates’ votes. (Their votes were determined by me though). Unfortunately, since the story did have to move on, all of the polls have been closed. I’ve marked what the majority was in the chapters, but there is a statsistics chapter at the end where you can see the outcomes of the votes in detail (how many people voted for who, when the vote was opened and closed, etc.)

Besides poll and chapter length data, the statistics chapter has summaries of every chapter in case you wanted a refresher or to find a specific chapter. 

Finally, I suggest avoiding reading the comments until you have finished the story. I’ve thrown a couple plot twists in this story, and you will see some spoilers with people’s reactions. 

‘Settings’:

You’re probably also curious about stuff like number of crewmates, your color, etc, so I’ll try to answer some of those here. I’ll go over a few ‘game settings.’ Please note, because this is written more realistically, your character doesn’t have the ‘meta knowledge’ you would have. For example, you don’t know right off the bat that doing a visual task clears you, that an impostor can use the vents... or even what an impostor is. 

\- There are 13 people in your crew. I know, I know, it’s usually 10 (at the time of publication at least) but I wanted to include all the 12 original colors, and then added an extra spot for you.

\- The color I gave you is gray. Why not give you a color that actually exists in game? Because I didn’t want to choose one for you that’s not your color. I thought about just leaving it ambiguous, but since you’re referred to as your color, I had to put something. 

\- Speaking of that, none of your crewmates have names. Everyone goes by color. Again, making it as open-ended as possible. I did create appearances for them that may be used in chapter art,[(Here’s a drawing I did)](https://i.imgur.com/lEIRK3v.jpg), but you are welcome to imagine them as anything you want. Their appareances do not factor into the story at all. 

\- I ‘photoshopped’ some voting screens you’ll see in the chapters where votes were held. Quotev can mess with image quality so I will also write out who voted for who in the chapter. (You can see an example as this chapter picture)

\- Anonymous voting is off. Two reasons. One: I started this fic before that was a feature in the game. Two: getting to see who votes for who is sometimes used in people’s discussions. 

\- For a few chapters early on, you will be dealing with another crew. I just gave them some random colors. You won’t be with them long but because we’re using colors as names I needed to use something for them.

\- You’ll be starting off at MIRA HQ for a few chapters, but the majority of the story will take place on the Skeld. 

\- You can talk and send messages between meetings. I know this is not how it works, but I preferred doing it this way for the sake of the story. Think proximity chat rules, where you can hear eachother if you’re close enough. 

And finally, perhaps the most important ones,

\- Confirm ejects is off. If someone gets thrown out of the ship, there is ~~supposedly~~ no way of telling whether or not you ejected an impostor. 

\- Nobody has any idea how many impostors there are. There could just be one, but there could be more. 

Because of these two things, ejecting (all) the impostor(s) may not automatically mean the end of the story. You’re still on the ship after all. 

And finally, there is one more major difference between the game and this fic, but telling you right away would spoil it, so you’ll just have to figure it out for yourself. :)

That’s all I have for you before we start, so thank you for reading and enjoy!


	2. [File 01: Conscription]

It was all supposed to be a joke. 

When MIRA had announced that they would be taking a select handful of random citizens to space with them, it had become more of a meme than anything. What kind of self-respecting organization would put the responsibility of space travel into the hands of literally anyone from the general public? It was obvious that whatever they were trying to do was going to be a disaster and nobody besides a few overenthusiastic nerds actually wanted to participate. Yet, when the time came to select the lucky(?) few, there were hundreds of thousands of names in the system.

Long story short someone had picked it up as a meme and the actual application ended up being shared to a much, much wider audience than expected. The project was not a secret of course, but the intention was for a limited group of people to be interested. Yet memes have no concept of original intent, so everyone and their mother ended up applying for this position simply for the meme. Everyone assumed MIRA would back off the project and rerelease the opportunity to a much more select audience, but that somehow avoided crossing their mind. News stories came out soon after that filling out this application was a bad idea because it was a legally binding agreement that you would take the position if selected. Of course, the damage had already been done as nobody actually bothered to read the cursed thing, and a staggering group of people was now potentially locked into an unavoidable space trip. 

Of course, with a group that large, and the moral, legal, and ethical concerns, nobody expected they would actually be selected for space travel based on a form they filled out as a joke. It would be wrong to hold anyone to that, right? Apparently not ruled a later to be infamous court case. It came to the conclusion that while it was sneaky and devious, there was nothing inherently illegal about what MIRA did and that the contract was still valid. While it was in the back of a few people’s minds, the contract had eventually been rendered as an obsolete meme and was mostly forgotten...

...Until the announcement date a couple months later. 

A handful of names had been chosen at random from the thousands who had completed the application and were eligible. Oddly enough it seemed nearly everyone ended up with the exact opposite of what they wanted, as from what you had heard via the news. There was public outcry as people who insisted they were much more qualified were not chosen, and most of the people who were chosen had not been serious about it. Despite nearly everyone involved being upset, there was no question whatsoever that the project would go on... for some reason. 

Needless to say, with the situation you find yourself in now, it was not incredibly surprising that you ended up being chosen for this adventure. Sure, in the moment it had been downright terrifying, but in hindsight, with a little more context, it was obvious that your story would be going nowhere if you hadn’t found your way onto that ship. Of course you contemplated fighting against it, finding some way out of this contract you had dove headfirst into without understanding, but short of grevious injury or death, there was no way out. You had no choice but to resign yourself to spending at least the better portion of a year in space.

It was somehow the thing you were most looking forward to and simultaneously most dreading about your near future. 

A couple months before the actual blastoff, you were headed to MIRA’s space mission training facility. While the project required specifically untrained, ordinary citizens, it made sense that you would have to be taught some basics as to how specifically to survive in the environment you would be launching into. You had to pass a basic intellectual competency test, government-level background checks, have several in-depth interviews to discuss your psychological state, and repeated physical exams for any health concerns that could endanger your life during the mission. It seemed a bit excessive, but understandable. Especially considering the fact that you were literally a random person chosen by a computer; who was going to be sent in one of the most complicated space missions of the modern era. No pressure.

After passing all of the prerequisites, which honestly surprised you at some points, you could begin your very regulated amount of training. One thing that you found incredibly peculiarabout the entirety of the training process was that you never once met someone that you would be actually embarking on the mission with. Trainings specific to your mission were done alone, and you had been told that any group activities were done with members of other missions that you would not be launching into space with. You tried several times to ask for the reasoning behind this, but all that you were told was that there was an important psychosocial component to the mission and meeting your other crewmates before the mission could upset the delicate balance of something or other. 

Overall, you were kept in the dark about a majority of what this mission was consisting of. You would be on a crew with twelve others, three of whom were actually formally trained for this mission. The philosophy was something along the lines of preparing for a future evacuation from Earth in case of a Mass Extinction Event. There would be a limited number of ‘skilled’ crew members while the majority of the colonists would have little to no space training whatsoever. Along with the actual mission, this was also an interstellar social experiment to see what adjustments would need to be made to make sure humans on long space trips would not end up murdering eachother out of frustration on the way there. This information was not the most comforting, especially as you worried what would happen if you ended up not getting along with your crewmates, but you did not really have any choice in the matter.

So went the first few weeks, learning the basics of the mission and how to complete tasks you would be required to do in space. Most of the things you would need to do seemed simple enough as the more difficult and specialized tasks were reserved for those with more than a few weeks of basic training. For ages you would sit in what almost seemed like classrooms, seeing demonstrations on how to get leaves out of an oxygen filter (where would the leaves be coming from, anyway?) or how to properly upload data to their servers. There was even an entire lecture on what, to you, seemed to be the most hilariously excessive security measure ever: a giant red button that would alert everyone in the area to an emergency. 

You didn’t really make any deep connections with anyone since you were hardly ever around the same people. Sure you were able to talk to some people, but making friends now seemed rather pointless. You eagerly yet nervously awaited the actual trip for a few reasons: finally being out of the training phase was something you were really looking forward to; and actually meeting your crewmates, while terrifying, would determine your future.

Eventually the day came. You were headed to headquarters, a giant structure that reached miles up in the air, to prepare for takeoff. From there you would launch inside a spaceship to the stars, and eventually end up landing on a faraway planet. But the top of the skyscraper was your first destination, and while you would only be there for a few days to set up for your actual launch, there you would finally get to meet your crewmates.

After a restless night of sleep, you found yourself being led to a small room, similar to something you would see a bunch of important officials sitting in to make business decisions. Towards the front of the room were several people who you recognized as leaders or scientists of some sort who had welcomed you into the program. There was a long conference table in the middle of the room, wooden and spotless with rolling chairs around it. Several people were seated along the table, five on one side, six on the other, and one sitting at the very end. You took the remaining open chair, inbetween a short female who somehow seemed even more nervous than you were, and a messy-haired male who was staring off into the distance. An intense-looking woman who had taken the seat at the end gave you a polite nod as you slid into your seat.

It was only a few more moments until the head of the program spoke and the low murmurs from around the room went silent. 

“Congratulations!” The head of the program announced. “You have successfully completed your training for the mission, and you will be leaving for the first stage of your mission later today.”

A few soft claps were heard from around the room.

”As we don’t have much time and I do not want to bore you, we will skip the formalities of further congratulations or introductions and get right to the point. You will have plenty of time to introduce yourselves later. “

Part of you was relieved you would have more time to prepare yourself, but another part was extremely anxious. Was this just delaying the inevitable where they all hate you? 

“You are all aware that this mission is multipurpose: both physically scientific and psychological. The psychological portion being the reason that most of you are here right now: pure randomness as opposed to training and talent... no offense of course.” This elicited an eyeroll from the crowd. “In order to complete the experiment properly, you will need to be under surveillance for many portions of the journey. To make it easier to tell in our surveillance footage and observations, and because of the large size of the crew, we have - for lack of a better term - decided to color-code you all with your spacesuits.” 

A few confused faces met that of the director’s. 

“We have assigned each of you a color. This is part of your identification and will be used for several purposes, the most obvious of which being the color of your spacesuit.”

One of the assistants walked up to the other side of the table holding a stack of several small papers. One by one they handed out the papers to your crewmates that you assumed would have your color assignments on them. Some looked at theirs eagerly while others seemed uncaring. 

One woman rolled her eyes at the color she had received while the person who had received the color pink groaned in frustration. A man on your side of the table, after grabbing his paper and looking at it, reached below his seat and put the paper under it. A few moments later you swore you could have heard a giggle coming out from under the table, but you ignored it for the time being. 

Eventally the assistant made their way over to you and handed you a piece of paper. Curious, you glanced at it quickly, only to find that the color you had drawn was _‘gray’_. Well that was certianly a bit of a letdown. You were not going to lie, you were a tad bit dissapointed that the color you had ended up with was not your favorite. You had hoped for something different, but this would have to do. 

You then proceeded to go around the table, saying your name and the color you had been given. The stern woman from the end of the table had ended up with black, and the nervous girl beside you received yellow. The guy on the other side of you had ended up with green, and a curly-haired girl ended up with orange. Smiling, the man who had shoved the paper under his chair announced that he had received lime, which was apparently different than green somehow. 

You were unable to immediately assign everyone to a color mentally, but you had a feeling that would not be too difficult in the near future. 

After noting this down, the head of the program that had been speaking earlier resumed their speech. Most of the topics covered were repetitive, things that you had heard many times over in training. As much as you disliked admitting it, you zoned out for a good portion of the speech. That might come back to bite you later, you reasoned, but it seemed as if very few of the others had been paying attention as well. After what seemed to be ages, you were finally wished a ‘good luck’ and filed out of the room with your soon-to-be-crewmates.

As you left the room, something inside you sank. You were unable to explain it, but somehow you felt that this trip was destined to go incredibly, horribly wrong.


	3. [File 02: Color-Coded]

As you left the room and looked in the mass of people, you noticed the man who had been assigned lime green bend down to look under the table. What was so interesting under that table? You quickly got your answer when you heard another giggle and saw a child who could not have been more than seven crawl out from underneath. The child resembled the man, so you assumed they were likely related. While the sight was cute, you could not help but wonder why exactly there was a kid with your crewmate in the meeting. Perhaps he was watching the kid for a family member? Either that or MIRA was seriously planning on sending a kid to space. 

Regardless, you were headed off with the rest of your crewmates-to-be to the transport that would take you to MIRA HQ: the docking station where you would be spending the next week preparing your ship for takeoff. Everyone was hushed, any conversations between people were almost silent. You could feel the anxiety in the air as the group walked down the winding hallways of the building. This was it, you were finally beginning your journey. And to think, only months ago, this had been purely a joke.

*******

Everyone spent a good portion of their first day with an awful dizzy feeling. The structure was located so high up in the sky that you were above the cloud layer, so naturally those who had not been training for years beforehand were unprepared. Almost everyone was struggling, and you were not even in space yet.

The suit you had been given was relatively light for a space suit, but still not the most comfortable thing in the world. Unfortunately, policy stated that due to the ‘current increased possibility of malfunctions with critical systems’, which in itself seemed menacing, you were to wear your suit, helmet, and oxygen tank whenever you left your room. You could tell this was not normal procedure as you had been given dayclothes and pajamas in your designated color. 

Nearly everyone had taken to finding some sort of hat to wear with their helmet. Why specifically? Nobody was exactly sure but apparently it had been a tradition. Some people had taken to balancing actual hats on their suits, such as Blue who wore a backwards baseball cap or Green who had stretched a beanie over his helmet; while others had simply attached what seemed to be random items to theirs, like Yellow who had managed to attach a little plant leaf to hers or Cyan who stuck a sticky note on her helmet. Red, however, had refused to wear any sort of hat, claiming that hats were ‘stupid.’ 

A majority of the crew, yourself included, took that first day to adjust, spending most of their time in their personal rooms. 

Everyone had been assigned a roommate, so soonafter you laid down to take a nap, the girl who had been sitting next to you at the table entered the room. 

“Oh! Hello!” She greeted you with an enthusiastic smile.

”Hello to you too.” You smiled back.

”I gues this means we’re roommates then!”

”It would certianly seem that way.”

To be honest it was not quite the most pleasant exchange, especially considering the fact that you were half asleep with a pounding headache and she was extremely loud. Either the change in pressure was not as big of a deal for her or she was just really good at working through the pain. Regardless, you managed to have a bit of a conversation. She seemed nice enough. When you finally told her that you had a headache, she insisted that she leave the room so you could get some rest and offered to bring you anything if you needed. The only thing you needed at the moment was sleep.

*******

Somehow you had managed to restlessly sleep through the first day without any food, so you were thankful when you managed to get up in time for breakfast. You and your roommate made your way to the cafeteria together, and you let her do all the talking. Frankly, you were still pretty groggy. After grabbing your food you sat down at a large table that resembled a picnic bench with your other crewmates. 

Slowly everyone filtered in, the last to enter being a guy in a green suit who somehow seemed even more tired than you were. Everyone attempted small talk for a while while eating, but you avoided chiming in much. It would take you a moment to get used to this. It turned out that your assumption had been wrong and the child that you had seen hiding under the table earlier was a part of your crew. The little boy was dressed in a lime green suit just like his dad and seemed to be having a blast. It was obvious you were not the only one with questions as it became a rather interesting topic of discussion. 

It was hard to catch exactly what was being said in the commotion, but apparently he was a single dad with no family that could take the child for him, and he refused to leave his kid behind. Instead of finding a replacement, MIRA decided to use this as a learning opportunity for the project. You were sure that had to be illegal or at least unethical somehow, but you decided to suspend your disbelief for the sake of the explanation. The kid, however, seemed to be quite happy on the mission, and was running around talking to everyone cheerfully. 

After it seemed everyone had finished eating, the stern-looking woman in the black suit stood, shortly followed by the more relaxed-looking male in the white suit. If you remembered correctly, she was the commander and he was the second-in-command. They were two of the three who actually received full-length training for the mission, the other being the pink-suited doctor. 

The two of them called out to get everyone’s attention, calling an informal meeting of sorts. 

“Welcome, crew, to your first official day on the job. I am your captian, for lack of a better term, and this is my second-in command. Technically, we are supposed to address eachother by our colors, so you can call me Black.”

”Yes, technically.” The second-in-command began, cutting her off. “But as the commanders we can make an allowance for first names at least.”

Your commander looked at him, mildly annoyed. She commander gave an exasperated sigh. “We should have discussed this earlier. I don’t want our first introduction to be telling everyone they can disregard a mission guideline.”

The two began to argue in a hushed tone. The second-in-command thought it was silly to call people by colors instead of names, while his counterpart stated that it was simply how it was done, and that they should not question the rules. It became apparent that these two were not exactly the best pair and having them constantly fighting for power was going to be disasterous. Several others decided to chime in and it was pretty obvious that everyone had differing opinions on such a little thing. Their argument went on for several minutes until your crewmate in pink interjected. 

“Listen you two.” They said rather strongly. “I still can’t believe they put you on a team together but you have no choice but to cooperate. This is insgnificant in the scheme of things, so how about we just agree on something and move on.”

It was silent for a moment. 

“How?” Whined the second-in-command.

Everyone looked around, trying to think of how to settle this. Suddenly a hand shot up from someone sitting towards the front of the table.

”Yes?” The commander asked. 

“Well, I had an idea. I was thinking maybe we could hold a vote? I know how to set up a poll in our group messaging system.” 

The commander thought for a moment. “That seems reasonable. Why don’t you go ahead and set that up, since this seems to be such an important topic for some reason.” 

The crewmate who had suggested that looked surprised that her answer had even been considered. There was yet another awkward silence until everyone received a notification on their tablets.

In a matter of a few minutes, everyone had made their choice. The consensus was that people would prefer colors for now as to avoid getting in trouble before even leaving Earth, but that the group might be revisiting it at a later date. The assistant commander, or White as you would now be calling him seemed frustrated that Black had favored the rules over his suggestion, and frankly kind of suprised. It was a bit odd to you that more people had voted to stay impersonal with eachother, but perhaps it was just because it was the start of the mission. And the commander was very intimidating. There was that too.

Black spoke again, addressing the group. ”Alright now that we have the issue of names, which was apparently important enough to take up an entire 20 minutes for, figured out, can I explain what we will be doing today?”

The group agreed. 

“Alright. Today a ship will be returning from the previous expedition to the planet Polus. This is the crew that we will be replacing, for lack of a better term. Their mission paved the way for ours, so I want everyone to treat them with respect. We will be taking off on their ship in a few days, but we will need to do some maintenance and repairs first.”

She motioned for White to continue. “Each of you will be given a list of tasks to complete over the next few days. Black, Pink, and I will be handling the more difficult ones while the rest of you should be able to finish the easier ones. If you have any questions please hesitate to ask us...” Black elbowed him in the side for that comment. “I mean, please, go ahead and ask us all your stupid questions and maybe we’ll help you if we feel up to it, I dunno.”

Pink rolled their eyes as they stepped in. “Also, just a reminder that I am our crew’s assigned doctor. You should all have basic first-aid knowledge and there is a medical station located on the ship, but please come to me with any injuries you obtain. I need to look at them and we will need to file a report together.”

”Does anyone have anything else they would like explained for now?”

”What time will the ship from Polus be arriving?” Orange asked.

”Later today. I don’t know of an exact time, but you will be notified and we will all head over to greet them.”

There were no further questions, so you were dismissed to go off and begin doing your tasks. You also wanted to explore the station and learn the layout a bit so you could actually walk around without your map shoved in your face. Needless to say, though, you had an awful lot of tasks to complete, so it was probably best to get those out of the way. Maybe you could find someone to walk around with? 

Several others had already split off into groups however, so it looked like, at least for the beginning, you would be by yourself. It was hard to tell if this was a good thing or a bad thing, but you could not help feeling uneasy as you set off to do your tasks alone.


	4. [File 03: Commencement]

Navigating the complex was a lot more difficult than you had anticipated. Figuring out the layout seemed almost pointless considering the fact that you would not be here for very long, so you were heavily reliant on your map. One of the more useful features of the map was the fact that it highlighted exactly where you needed to go and the place where you currently were, so at least you had that going for you.

The rest of the morning was spent running around the area, attempting to get a head start on the list of tasks that had been given to you. Obviously you were not going to be able to complete all of them today, but you were going to try your hardest to get as many out of the way as possible. 

The first task you decided to accomplish was the medical scan. It almost felt redundant with the amount of testing you had been required to do before you arrived here, especially due to the fact that you had yet to actually arrive in space, but you supposed that being this high in the atmosphere could have an adverse effect on your body or something of the like. Of course, the hardest part of this task might prove to be finding your way to the medbay. Looking at the map while you walked and not falling or running into something in your clumsy spacesuit was not exactly the easiest thing to do, and while you were so focused on looking at the map, you managed to walk straight into someone.

You and Orange had collided, both too busy looking at your maps to see the other coming. Orange’s tablet slipped out of her hands and fell on the floor with a loud SMACK! Wincing, you reached over to pick it up and hand it back to her. 

She muttered a curse under her breath. The screen had cracked when it fell and there was now a line of broken glass going through her map. 

“I’m so sorry!” You promptly apologized. “It was my fault, I wasn’t looking where I was going.”

”Nah, you’re fine. I wasn’t looking either” She reassured you. 

“I’m sorry I broke your tablet.”

”It wasn’t your fault. I was surprised I hadn’t broken it already to be honest. I’m... well I guess you can call me Orange. This whole color thing is kinda silly to be honest.” 

You gave a small laugh. 

“Well I’m Gray” you introduced as you motioned to your suit. “Where were you headed?”

She pulled up the map on her now-cracked screen. “I was headed to somewhere they call communications I think? I’m pretty sure I was headed the wrong way though.”

”I was headed to the medbay. I think...” You zoomed in on your map. “Yeah, communications is right above medbay. Do you want to walk over that way together?”

”Sure. I don’t know if it’s just me, but I get real creepy vibes walking alone around here. Is that weird? It sounds weird.”

”No, I get it, it’s kind of unsettling being alone. How about I go with you to do your task in communications and hang with you, and then you can come with me to medbay?”

”Sounds good.”

The two of you walked together around the corner, making small talk about your life before being selected for the mission and discussing the hats you had decorated your spacesuits with. Communicating would have been futile had it not been for the communication system in your suits, much like walkie-talkies. The helmet muffled sound, so it was already difficult to hear the confirmation of your tasks, never mind someone talking. You made it work though, relying on the visual confirmation of your tasks. 

The first stop was for Orange to download data from the building in the communications room. While she focused on connecting her tablet to the system in the wall, you fiddled with the computer. There was some sort of program that kept track of who was passing each door which was both interesting and slightly unnerving. Theoretically, anyone could track your location if they paid close attention. Why exactly they would need a system like this in the first was beyond your understanding, but MIRA had said that they would be taking surveillance rather seriously for the sake of the mission. 

It took longer than you would have expected to complete the exchange of data, but by the time you had gotten bored of staring at the doorlog, she had finished. You gave her a small smile and the two of you exited the room, headed to medbay. The trip was not that long, and it was a matter of a minute or two before you found yourself standing in the next room. The walls were lined with cots, but perhaps the most interesting feature of the room was a large scanner in the middle of the room.

“Do you, by chance have any idea how this works?” You asked Orange sheepishly.

”I think you just stand on the scanner thing? I’m honestly not sure.”

In retrospect, you probably should have asked Pink to come with you. They were the doctor after all. 

“Maybe I should message Pink?” You suggested. 

“I guess you can.” Orange shrugged. “They scare me to be honest.”

The two of you shared a laugh as you grabbed your tablet to message Pink. 

> **DM:** _Crew/Mission2.018/GRAP0,PINP3_

* * *

**GRAY** : Hey Pink, I was just wondering how I do the medical scan thing. Do you need to be there for that?

* * *

It took a few minutes for Pink to respond, so you were worried it was a stupid question. Orange tried to explain that she was also unaware but until Pink responded back you were anxious. Thankfully, they had realized that they had yet to explain how it worked to anyone, and sent detailed instructions to everyone on how to complete the task. Pink offered to help but explained that they were currently busy in Admin so trying to figure it out yourself would be the best bet. You decided that you and Orange would try your best to figure it out yourselves to avoid bothering Pink.

Thankfully, it ended up being relatively easy to figure out. You pressed a few buttons and stood on a scanner plate thing for a few seconds. Among other things, it collected data such as your height, weight, and blood type. Orange gave you a thumbs-up as you completed the scan, letting you know that she had seen it complete. 

Just as you had finished inputting the data from the scan, you got a message from Black saying that the others would be arriving soon. The message also instructed you to finish whatever task you were working on to meet up with the others at the launchpad to assist the new arrivals.

You and Orange were some of the first ones there, being only beaten by Black, White, and Blue. Black and White made sense with their high ranking positions, but you were confused as to why Blue had gotten there so early. Had he not been working on any tasks? Well, it was not really your place to call him out, especially on a mere suspicion of laziness. 

Soon others began filing in. Pink came in first and gave you a thumbs-up, effectively asking if you figured out the medical scan. You retuned the gesture and watched as your crewmates followed. Yellow was chasing Lime’s son while Lime lagged behind. Cyan was walking alone, off to the side of the two, looking at something on her tablet. Green was talking about sports to Purple, who looked rather uninterested. Red seemed to be hitting on Brown, who seemed really uncomfortable and was trying to catch up to Green and Purple. You were about to step in to save Brown from what you could only assume were Red’s incessant pickup lines, but White got everyone’s attention.

”Good, now that everyone is here, I can explain why we are all here” 

“The other people are landing, right? We know this already.” Red rolled his eyes. From what you had seen so far, you were starting to believe he was not exactly someone you would get along with.

”Yes, Red. In a few minutes our ship will be docking and the previous astronauts will be exiting. They will be staying with us for a few days while they acclimatize to being on Earth again.”

”How many are there?” Asked Green.

”Five in total. We don’t have enough space for all of them to have a room, so those of you with extra space in your quarters will be rooming with one of them for a couple nights.”

”We will figure out who will be sharing rooms later.” Black chimed in. 

Cyan asked a question next. “Do they have the same colors as us? If so the whole color-name thing might be confusing.” 

“No.” Answered White. “I don’t know what colors they are but-“

”Actually I have that information.” Black interrupted, looking at something on her tablet. “There’s Gold, Silver, Maroon, Peach, and Teal.”

”I still think colors are stupid.” Mumbled White under his breath.

The group exchanged looks. If these two were your commanders and still were unable to work together, this might be a major problem. If you could see the others’ faces clearer, you were sure that at least one other crewmate was rolling their eyes. 

Pink cleared their throat to try to stop the bickering. “Anyway” They spoke over the two, who were arguing. “The other crew should be arriving any minute now. We will help them disembark and your tablets will be updated with tasks you need to complete on the ship as well as the ones in this complex. I know it will look like a lot, but we have six more days to finish these. Any questions?”

There was a resounding “no” from the group and Pink dismissed everyone to wait. They literally grabbed White and Black by the sleeves and dragged them to the side of the launchpad. Before Pink’s microphone got out of range you could hear them beginning to rant.

“I swear if you two don’t start to get along and lead this mission like you’re supposed to I will personally call HQ and tell them that you two are being completely...”

You sighed. This was going to be a long mission.


	5. [File 04: Communities]

Eventually Pink managed to calm down Black and White. You were unsure exactly what they said to the pair, but it seemed to have worked for the moment at least. Just in time also, as you began to see a turtle-shaped ship descend from the sky. There it was, The Skeld. The ship you would be spending months on in just a few days. But once again, you were getting ahead of yourself. 

The ship slowly docked onto the launchpad, making an uncomfortable amount of noise even with the deafaning properties of your helmet. You noticed Cyan reach up to cover her ears only to hit the sides of her helmet, and Lime’s child hid behind his father’s leg. You flinched a bit at the clang when the ship reached its resting position. Nobody dared to say anything for the moment, knowing they would be interrupted by some sort of noise. 

Eventually the door to the ship opened, and a group of astronauts slowly disembarked, seeming to have been a bit shaken from the landing. 

“Welcome home.” Black greeted the astronauts. “I’m Black, the commander of this group. White is my second.”

The astronaut leading the group replied. “I’m Gold, the commander of my crew. There were... five of us on that mission.”

Something about the way he said that seemed off. It took him just a tad too long to count the amount of astronauts he had been living with. 

”Nice to meet you. I would give you a tour but you probably know this place better than most of us already.”

Gold simply nodded and motioned for the others to disembark after him. None of them said anything, and in that moment you wished you could see through their tinted visors more clearly and catch a glimpse of the expressions on their faces. However, from a distance, it was hard to see their faces. You could have sworn that Peach was shaking a bit. 

The entire atmosphere was uncomfortable, and it was clear that you were not the only one who felt it. A large number of your crewmates were on edge, the exception being Green who seemed to be dozing off where he stood. Red stood there, watching the astronauts closely, a look of almost joy on his face. It was hard to tell with the helmet, but he seemed happy for some reason. As Black and White spoke to the other crew, a conversation started in the messaging application.

> **GROUP MESSAGE:** _Crew/Mission2.018/All_

* * *

**PURPLE** : Have any of you all noticed something off with the other crew?

 **LIME** : They seem nervous.

 **ORANGE** : Why? We should be the nervous ones lol

 **BROWN** : ikr, what do they have to be nervous about? We’re the newones.

 **YELLOW:** do you think they’re ok?

 **GREEN** : Maybe theyre secretly smugglers xD

 **RED** : green what the ****

 **LIME** : Wait green’s awake? Could have sworn I saw him dozing off there.

 **RED** : ****

 **RED** : why can’t I say ****

 **BROWN** : Nice one lime 

**GREEN** : shut up lime 

**RED** : what kinda **** is this? why the **** is it censoring everything?

 **ORANGE** : oml red what 

**CYAN** : @red There’s a censor bulit in. You can turn it off on your end I think

 **PINK** : you all should be paying attention

 **CYAN** : oh! I’m sorry! Pinks right.

 **YELLOW** : sorry pink :(

* * *

So it seemed the chat had gotten a bit off topic which was probably best in this situation. After all as Pink had said you probably should have been paying attention. It turns out while you were busy looking at the chaos of the chat, the returning crew had been assigned to share bedrooms and you had no idea who was in yours. You tried asking Yellow but she was just about as clueless as you were. There was always the option of going up and asking Black and White, but it seemed that Yellow had already approached the two and started apologizing for not paying attention. You decided you would let Yellow figure out who is in your room and tell you later.

You remembered that after the original crew had arrived you would be getting even more tasks added to your list. Sighing as you checked the list, you realized that this was a bit more work than you had been expecting. Not only did you have to finish completing the tasks in the station you currently were in, but also on the ship that you would be taking off on. Why exactly the previous crew was not doing these tasks was beyond your understanding; unless of course they were doing other tasks and this was only a portion of them. However that would explain the need for eight more people on this mission than the previous one, the last crew was probably overwhelmed. The small size of the previous crew still bothered you, especially with Gold’s hesitation, but you would have been told if something happened on the previous mission, right?

It was highly likely that you were just being paranoid and so you shrugged it off for the moment; yet you did not seem to be the only person to share that sentiment based on what had been described in the group chat. Purple in particular seemed wary of the other crew. This whole thing seemed fishy- from how you were originally selected to the possible secrecy behind the size of the previous crew. 

Regardless you didn’t have any time for speculations. There were plenty of tasks to be done especially now that the others had arrived- effectively bringing an entire ship load of work with them. The rest of your day, you decided, would be devoted to the things you had to get finished.

*******

The rest of the day was rather uneventful. After doing tasks for a good couple hours, you ended up having dinner with the crew. The returning astronauts sat together, separate from your group, and spoke in hushed whispers to eachother. Red’s gaze, however, seemed to linger on the astronauts from the other crew. Everyone else was a bit weirded out by the others but nobody dared push the issue. Your commander had walked through the ship and apparently nothing had seem obviously amiss, so there was not much concrete evidence to go on. 

During dinner you tried striking up a conversation with some of your other crewmates. You attempted to talk to Blue, but he did not seem to be particularly talkative in general, so you moved on to talking with your roommate Yellow and her newfound friends Purple and Cyan. According to Yellow, Silver would be staying with you for the next couple nights. Purple and Cyan were roommates, and they would be having Peach stay with them. Apparently Lime had a room mostly to himself because of his son, which a few people were quite jealous of. Otherwise, Blue and Pink, Red and Green, and Brown and Orange all had guests. Black and White were bunking together, much to their dismay, but they avoided having any guests because of their positions as leaders. You honestly did not really feel entirely comfortable having one of these scary strangers in you room, but there was nothing you could do. Unfortunately, (or perhaps fortunately the more that you think about it), you would not fit into the category of a parent or a leader.

After dinner, you headed to your room with Yellow and Silver following close behind. Yellow seemed excited to have a new roommate, but Silver was not the type to deal well with that kind of enthusiasm. 

“Is she always like this?” Silver whispered to you, grimacing.

”I haven’t known her long, but from what I’ve seen, yeah."

”Great.” He rolled his eyes.

Yellow had kept going on and on with her stories and explanations, but eventually realized that Silver was not really paying attention. She must have realized that he may have been bored or uninterested, and started profusely apologizing to him. This annoyed him greatly and after a while he ended up leaving to go ‘take a walk’. 

Honestly, you were pretty exhausted yourself, so after a shower you found yourself sliding into the bed. It was not exactly the most comfortable bed, but it was a bed and you were tired. Regardless, you were in a bed, and had finally been able to exchange your heavy spacesuit for a surprisingly comfortable pair of pajamas. They were still in your designated color, unfortunately, but they were pajamas all the same. Of course, it took you ages to actually fall asleep, much to your annoyance, so you spent quite a while scrolling through various apps and websites. After all, falling asleep as soon as you laid into bed? Probably the most unrealistic thing that could have happened here. 

You had finally managed to get to sleep and were enjoying the snippet of rest you were getting until you were interrupted with screams coming from the room beside yours followed by loud, frantic pounding on your door. At first you had assumed it was just the station making noise, but your tablet on the table next to you was buzzing incessantly with messages.

> **Group Message:** _Crew/Mission2.018/GRAP0, YELP6, CYAP9, PURP11_

* * *

**PURPLE:** come over NOW

 **PURPLE:** its peach

 **PURPLE:** iwe need help ASAP

 **PURPLE:** cyan went to get pink

 **PURPLE:** Come quick pls

 **PURPLE:** knocking on ur door now

_PURPLE is typing..._

* * *

Blearily, you got out of bed and walked to the door, opening it to see why on earth you were being disturbed this late. 

On the other side of the door was your neighbor, dressed in her pajamas, typing quickly on her tablet. This must have been urgent considering you were not supposed to leave your room without your suit on in case of an emergency. 

“Purple? What is it? What’s wrong?”

”It’s our guest, Peach!” She practically yelled while grabbing your hand, dragging you down the hallway to their room.


	6. [File 05: Confusion]

“What’s wrong with Peach?” You asked as you were pulled along by Purple. “Are they alright?”

”It’s best if you see for yourself.” She said, curtly, as you approached the door. 

Purple scanned in and the door opened with a hiss. There, crouched in the corner, was Peach with tears streaming down their face.

”What happened?”

”I dunno, I just woke up and they were like this. Cyan said they might have been having a nightmare, they were shaking in their sleep or something. They haven’t left that spot since I’ve woken up.”

“Have you tried talking to them?” 

Purple shot you a glare and you realized that you had probably asked a ridiculous question. 

“No. I just let them sit there crying and screaming alone in the corner and ran to get you. I didn’t even attempt to make contact with them.” She replied sarcastically, rolling her eyes.

You moved to take a step forward, but Purple held you back. 

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you.”

Do what? Walk into the room? How were you supposed to even try to help the situation if you avoided walking inside.

“I think I’ll be ok.” You said as you stepped forward into the room.

Immediately Peach screamed. 

“Don’t come any closer!” They ordered as they raised their fists, jumping up to their feet in a mere instant. Despite the fact that they were still wearing their suit, you could see the panic in their eyes through their helmet.

“Hey, hey. Relax. It’s ok.” You motioned for them to sit down as Purple grimaced in the doorway. “I’m here to help.”

”How do I know that?” They tensed, remaining in a fight-or-flight stance. You noticed that they had grabbed a spare piece of pipe they had found somewhere and were holding it in front of their body, ready to strike with it at a moment’s notice. “How do I know you don’t want to hurt me?”

You looked back at Purple, eyebrows raised in confusion. She simply gave a resigned shrug.

”Peach, It’s me- “ You were about to give them your name but you corrected yourself at the last moment. “- Gray. I’m one of the astronauts on the other mission. We met briefly yesterday.” 

They relaxed a little bit for a moment, tear-filled eyes meeting yours. Peach stared into your eyes for a moment as if they were the only thing keeping them together.

You had to admit you were a bit lost here. Obviously they had been having a nightmare or episode of some sort and were unaware that they were back in reality. “It’s ok. I’m not going to hurt you.” was all you could offer. Somehow, this seemed to make them the slightest bit more anxious.

You heard footsteps outside the room and were relieved. The commanders and doctors would have more training than you on how to calm down a panicked crewmate.

Your tablet buzzed with a message.

> **DM:** _Crew/Mission2.018/GRAP0,PINP3_

* * *

**PINK:** hey how is it going in there?

 **PINK:** cyan told us Peach is freaking out

 **PINK** : cyan, purple, me, black, white, and gold are all outside.

 **PINK** : yellow went to find silver 

**PINK** : we’re trying to get ahold of the others from their crew but most of them are asleep or smth

 **PINK** : anyway I spoke to gold and apparently peach has a history of night terrors

 **PINK** : so we’re gonna try to calm them down 

**PINK** : you think they would be ok if someone came in?

* * *

You looked back to Peach, who seemed to be a bit calmer now.

* * *

**GRAY** : yeah, I think so.

 **PINK** : ok. yellow found silver so we’re gonna ask him to come in.

 **PINK** : gold says they were close

 **GRAY** : ok

* * *

You sat there in awkward silence for a minute, until you heard footsteps behind you. Turning around for a moment, you saw Silver enter the room and was relieved. He probably knew them much better. In an attempt to calm them down, he flicked the light switch in the room off.

Turns out, this was a huge mistake.

Looking back on the incident, you were able to understand why this might have freaked Peach out a bit. Silver had turned off the lights as soon as he entered the room, leaving a spooky silhouette of him standing in the doorway. He had been out for a walk on the balcony so he had entered the room while still wearing his spacesuit and helmet. Between the darkness and the suit, it was impossible to tell who he was. You would have been freaked out too had it been you, but for an already terrified Peach, it was too much. 

They practically jumped up to the ceiling when the lights turned off, took one look at the menacing figure, and immediately lashed out in fear. Suddenly there was a pipe headed straight for your face, and it was physically impossible to dodge it in time. Of course, you were not wearing your suit or helmet at this point, so the pipe ended up whacking your face rather hard. You felt pain radiate through your nose and stumbled for a second, blinking spots out of your eyes in shock. The pain in your nose quickly brought you back to reality as you stepped backward. Silver stepped in and pushed you back gently while going towards Peach. 

You staggered back to the doorway, putting your hands out to steady yourself. A sea of surprised faces met you, and Pink quickly pulled you aside to check on you. 

“Are you ok? What happened?” They asked

”Peach freaked out and uh... hit me in the face with a pipe I guess?” You paused, replaying the scene in your mind. “I think I’m ok though, just a bit stunned.”

They looked at you for a moment. “Yeah, I think you’ll be fine. Nothing looks broken. I still want to take you back to the medbay to check you out and get you cleaned up though.”

It was only now that you realized your nose had actually been bleeding. Peach must have been stronger than they looked. No wonder why everyone had seemed so shocked, you probably looked a lot worse for wear than you actually were.

You agreed to follow Pink to the medbay and the two of you made your way there wordlessly. They were letting you process what had just happened before they asked you several questions. 

When you arrived, Pink instructed you to sit down as they looked at your nose closer. It was sore but they determined it was not broken, which was a relief. You had yet to take off, but having a broken nose in space had to be unadvisable. It had stopped bleeding on its own so you simply just wiped your face with a cloth. Pink asked you a couple questions while typing some notes down on their tablet. 

Before Pink had finished their questions, both Black and White arrived in the room. The two of them also had several questions for you, and asked you to explain the situation in detail. You tried your best, but you were exhausted as the adrenaline from the chaos was still wearing off. 

“Do you think Peach’s nightmares have anything to do with how avoidant the other crew is being?” Pink speculated. 

“I don’t want to jump to any conclusions but something is definitely off.” Agreed Black.

White simply commented “They freak me out to be honest.” 

“I was trying to get some information from Gold, but he said that this was normal for Peach. I thought as their commander he would have more pertinent information. I wanted to ask their doctor but I was informed that they don’t have one.” 

“Wait, Black, did you say that they don’t have a doctor? They have to have a doctor. It was in my training.” Pink seemed concerned. “Let me see if I can access their medical records.”

As Pink typed away on their tablet, Gold entered the room. 

“I was just letting you all know that we got Peach called down, and hopefully we won’t have any more problems with them.” 

You felt uncomfortable with the way he said that. 

Gold continued. “Anyway, if you all are done in here, I need to talk to you Black. Commander to Commander.”

Black agreed and the two of them headed off to talk somewhere. White tried to follow but was stopped, much to his annoyance. 

“Why don’t you head on back to your room and get some sleep?” Pink suggested. 

Exhausted, you agreed, and headed back to your room. When you arrived, Silver had returned from comforting peach and was now resting in his makeshift bed, and Yellow had collapsed into her bed, looking about as exhausted as you felt. 

Slowly you drifted off into a restless sleep, waking up every so often to the slightest of sounds.

*******

You woke up later than you planned to the next day. You had set an alarm but managed to somehow sleep through it, so for a moment you panicked as you thought of being late. Frantically, you opened your messages, seeing a new one from your roommate. 

> **DM:** _Crew/Mission2.018/GRAP0, YELP6_

* * *

**YELLOW:** I was told to let you sleep in after last night, so don’t worry. Just head to the cafeteria about 10:30 (am) for a crew meeting.

* * *

Relieved, you flopped back into your bed. For a few minutes you just laid there, staring at the ceiling, processing what had happened last night. You could feel a headache building, but for the time being you ignored it. You checked the time and saw that it was getting pretty close to 10 o’clock, so after a few more minutes of sitting there you put your legs over the side of the bed and felt your feet touch the floor. Slowly you got up, rubbing your eyes and stretching your arms. It took the next few minutes to complete your morning routine such as brushing your teeth and washing your face, and then you got dressed into your suit. Finally, you made your way to the cafeteria to meet with your fellow crewmates. You had to admit that you were curious about what exactly you would be covering in this meeting. It was highly likely that it was something that had to do with last night, which honestly you were not looking forward to. You sincerely hoped that Peach was ok.

Somehow you were not the last person to arrive to the table. Green sauntered in about a minute or two after you did still rubbing his eyes. Clearly he had yet to get his morning coffee. It seemed like every time you talked to him he was half asleep. You noticed the other crew was nowhere to be found. Some part of you had expected to see them at the table with your crew but this must have just been a meeting for your crewmates. 

“Finally, we can start.” Red sighed.

“What took you so long?” Purple giggled as Orange elbowed her in the side.

”Shut up.” Green grumbled, grabbing a coffee as he sat down at the table. 

Brown raised her eyebrows. “Long night?” 

It was apparent that Green had shifted from tired to annoyed as he decided to opt for a rude hand gesture and a curse under his breath. 

“Ok, now that we are all here, it’s time to go over our main reason for the meeting today.” Black began. “I have been informed that because of our... incident last night, mission control wants our two groups to be separated until we take off. This is effective immediately as you can tell.”

”Why?” Asked Lime, concerned. 

“What?” Red seemed disproportionately angry. “Why would they do this?”

“They refused to give us any further information, but orders are that we do not communicate with them at all. As they still need to reacclimate to Earth, they will be staying here, but room assignments have been shuffled and you are not to speak to them under any circumstances.” 

“Is our roommate ok?” Asked Purple. “They left with Silver last night and never came back.”

”Silver came back and slept in the room last night.” You mentioned, remembering seeing him asleep when you got back.

”He left pretty early this morning, though.” Yellow stated, rubbing the back of her neck. “We were both still asleep I guess, because he was gone when I woke up.”

”All I have been told is that they are not in any physical danger.” Pink cut in. “I wanted to assess their mental state further but I was ordered to stand down.”

Before anyone could even ask him, White defended himself. ”I don’t have any more information than Black does, so please don’t ask me.”

“Do you have any idea what it could be? Yknow, off the record of course.” Red questioned the commander.

Her words were curt and brief. ”I am not going to spread speculations and rumors around our ship.” 

“I just want to know why they had to separate us!” Red pushed.

“Speaking of rumors...” Green cut in, half asleep. “Where did you go last night, Red?”

”What do you mean?” He questioned. “I just went out on a walk on the balcony. Did you have something else in mind?”

”Well I know you’ve been spending a lot of time with...”

”Hey hey hey! This is an official crew meeting, not gossip hour.” Black knocked on the table to get everyone’s attention. “Besides, we’re not done here.”

”Geez, sorry man.” Green apologized and laid his head down on the table. 

“Anyway, as I was saying, there’s one more thing.” Black was clearly getting annoyed at the constant interruptions. “Because of this new regulation and the lack of sufficient space to keep us apart, we will be launching **_tomorrow_**.”


	7. [File 06: Communication]

Understandably, everyone was concerned and surprised. Tomorrow? That was so soon. 

“How are we supposed to finish all our tasks by then?” Asked Cyan.

Blue nodded as he looked at a wrinkled piece of paper he had scribbled his tasks down on. About half of them had been crossed off, but it was difficult to see exactly what they were as his handwriting was not the best. 

“Good question. Because of the new rules regarding the separation of our crew from theirs, we had to rearrange the task lists. This is still a work in progress, but for the most part it has been restructured so the other crew has all of the tasks here on the MIRA HQ station while we have taken over the tasks on the Skeld. Why it was not divided up like this before is beyond me, but regardless everyone’s tasks have been changed around. Please look closely at your lists as some of them need to be completed before we launch.”

“I hate tasks” Green muttered. Several others overheard this and agreed. 

“If any of you have any task-related questions, feel free to ask me. Now, I also wanted to check in with you all to make sure you were doing ok after last night. I know several of you were involved in the incident that occurred, and I wanted to make sure all of you were feeling safe. I know I spoke to several of you individually but I wanted to give you the opportunity to share any concerns you may have with the group . Purple and Cyan, I know they were your roommate for the night. I know that their group is no longer mixing with ours but if you want to switch around rooms at all we can rearrange-“

”No!” Purple stopped Black before she could finish speaking. “Cyan’s the best roommate! We have to be together!”

Cyan looked almost panicked for a moment, but then simply nodded. “Thank you Purple, you’re great too. And I’m sure we will be fine.”

”Ok. That settles that then.” Black seemed pleasantly surprised but went accepted it. You were pretty sure she had been asking about switching the location of their room rather than the roommate situation, but she went along with their answer. Then Black got to the topic you had been dreading, you. “Gray, how about you? You got hit in the face last night. Pink told me you were physically ok, but if there’s anything-“

”I’m fine.” You cut her off, regretting this as she seemed rather frustrated about being interrupted twice in a row. “It certainly caught me off guard but I’m fine.”

”And before you ask I would be perfectly fine with Gray still being my roommate!” Yellow began. ”I mean you probably weren’t asking but just in case. I really like being rooomates with them because they’re nice and if they’re scared or something I would be willing to comfort them.”

You sent Yellow a small smile as she spoke, letting her know that you appreciated her kindness.

“I wasn’t asking that but thank you.” Black replied curtly. “Anyone else have anything to say before I continue talking?”

”Uh yeah.” White piped in. “Can I get a new roommate? I don’t like mine, she’s a bit mean.”

This ellicited a laugh from a few of your crewmates who remembered the fact that Black and White were roommates.

“Oh! Me too! Mines’ super boring!” Red interrupted. “Green just sleeps all the time, like right now for example.” 

Sure enough, at the end of the table, Green was dozing off.

An exasperated Black took a few deep breaths in to compose herself before speaking again. 

“Please. Everyone focus. I’m getting a migraine.” Black went to rub her forehead but ended up smacking her palm into her helmet.

Slowly she began to walk through some of the changes in task assignments as well as preparations that would need to be made for launch tomorrow. There was a lot to do and honestly you were unsure if your crew would be able to prepare in time. However, it seemed as if you had no choice according to MIRA and would be working on tasks late into the night if you had to. Some you would have to do even while the ship was in orbit. Stressed, you set your mind to focus on your tasks for the day. 

*******

Exhausted from nonstop task work, later that day you planned to return to your quarters for a break. You had not really stayed with anyone in particular, but ended up having to get some assistance from some others when your tablet was malfunctioning. It had been happening to several others too, making it difficult to complete your tasks. You and the others you spoke to were not getting the same confirmations you should when completing them. Someone brought up a theory of something messing with the communications somehow, while someone else suggested problems with the way they had reassigned tasks. Something was nagging at you though, the fact that someone had mentioned that it could be some sort of sabotage unnerved you. Regardless, you headed to your room, prepared to get at least a moment of rest before having to return to your tasks. 

It seemed you were not so lucky.

As the doors hissed open, you saw that you were not alone. It was not even your roommate, but two members of the other crew, clearly searching fo something in your room. Teal and Maroon were rummaging through your and Yellows’ things with a sense of urgency.

”What are you doing here?” You asked matter-of-factly. “We’re not supposed to be interacting, never mind in each other’s rooms.”

”Wait a minute I know this looks weird but Yellow let us in.” Maroon raised her hands into the air, backing away from the drawer she had been sifting through. 

“You can ask her.” Corroborated Teal. 

“I will.” 

> **DM:** _Crew/Mission2.018/GRAP0, YELP6_

* * *

**GRAY:** Why are there two members of the other crew in our room?

 **GRAY:** Theyre searching through our stuff

 **YELLOW:** o sorry I forgot to warn you! 

**YELLOW** : is it teal and maroon?

 **GRAY** : yea

 **YELLOW** : yes ok

 **YELLOW** : when Silver was in here he apparently left his tablet 

**YELLOW** : I let the two of them in to search for it but I had to finish a task

 **YELLOW** : I was gonna be right back but it’s taking a while :(

 **YELLOW** : communications is being weird or something according to the others 

**GRAY:** yea it’s bad timing 

* * *

Despite you being on edge, this seemed legitimate, so you decided to trust these two for now. It was not as if they could have done anything to the communication technology while they were in your room.

”I talked to Yellow. She told me why you were here.”

”Yeah, Silver said his tablet was really important to him. It has pictures of his family and his dog on it apparently.” Maroon explained. “Sorry we were looking through your stuff. Yellow said it was ok.”

You sighed, annoyed at the whole situation. “Alright. Let me know if you need help or anything.”

“Actually I think we’ll just go now.” Maroon stated. “We couldn’t find it anywhere and we’re not supposed to be with you anyways.”

Teal looked uncomfortable and typed something on her tablet quickly. Maroon got the message and typed back. This went on for a few minutes as you stood there awkwardly. Both of them seemed to get more agitated, but it was hard to tell as they had their helmets on. 

“You two ok?” You asked, confused as to what was happening exactly. 

The two stopped typing for a moment and faced eachother. Maroon shook her head and Teal stepped forward. 

“Hey, Gray?” She asked softly.

”Yeah?”

”We’re not supposed to tell you anything but...” Teal looked to Maroon for approval, but clearly was not getting it. Regardless, Maroon did not make any move to stop them.

”Just, be careful. Tell Yellow too. The two of you seem really nice and I’d hate for anything to... happen to you. I’m sure it will be fine and I’m just being paranoid after what happened but still.”

”Thank you?” You stated, it sounding more like a question than anything 

“Teal, it’s fine. We got them, remember. Nothing is gonna happen to the next crew. Nothing is going to happen to us.” Maroon moved to reassure Teal, who you realized may have actually been crying from the soft sniffles that were coming from her helmet. 

The two were silent for a moment as they turned to leave. 

“Good luck with your mission, Gray.” Maroon said as she exited your room.

Teal lingered for a second, turning back around to face straight at you. She said one thing before exiting as well.

“Don’t trust anyone.” 

******

After your break you returned to doing your tasks, heading over in the direction of the launchpad to fuel the ship. As you walked past the medbay, Pink called out to you. 

“Hey Gray, you scanned the other day and it worked, right?”

”Yeah.” You confirmed. “Why? Is it not working or something?”

”Well I had someone message me today that it wasn’t working for them for some reason. I tried walking them through it but they couldn’t get it to work.”

“Huh. I wonder if that has anything to do with the communications issues people have been having today.”

”Maybe.” Pink speculated. “Thanks anyway.”

”See you around.” You waved as you went onwards to the launchpad. 

It was quiet for once, which was nice. It had gotten late enough where the sun had set and, once you made your way onto the platform, you could see the stars above. Because you were so high up in the sky, above the atmosphere, the stars were easier to see and did not have the same twinking effect. You wanted so badly to take off your helmet and look, but because of how thin the air was, you would not have been able to breathe. So you settled for staring up at the sky as you walked, thinking about how tomorrow you would be joining those stars in space.


	8. [File 07: Continuing]

After staying up into the early hours of the morning to finish tasks, you were pretty exhausted when you woke up the next morning. Not to mention the fact you had a difficult time sleeping due to the nagging feeling that someone, or something, was watching you. You could have sworn you heard something shuffling around below the floor, but it had to have been your imagination. Yellow had seemed uneasy too last night, as if she felt it as well, but nether of you mentioned it. For a moment you were tempted to sleep in, and you likely would have, had it not been for Yellow gently poking you awake.

”I’m sorry I didn’t want to wake you up but we are leaving soon and I didn’t want you to get in trouble!” Yellow apologized after seeing you stir.

”No, it’s alright. Thank you.”

You reassured her as you flopped out of bed. Checking the time, you were glad Yellow had woken you up as you just had enough time to get ready. Putting on a full space suit tended to be rather time consuming. Unfortunately you had not had time to grab breakfast, so you would have to deal with being hungry. It might be for the best though, as taking off into space probably was not the easiest thing to do on a full stomach. Regardless, between the lack of sleep, lack of food, nerves for the launch, and just a general feeling of uneasiness, you had to admit that you were not exactly feeling great. It was not as if you could take today off though, so you pushed through it. 

After getting ready and putting your personal items into a small box, you made your way to the launchpad alongside a few of your crew members. As you passed by the communications room, you saw Maroon from yesterday who quickly nodded her head and went back to a task. For a second, your mind wandered to what her partner Teal had said yesterday. Something had happened on that ship, something dangerous. And the people above did not want you to know. You rationalized that if it was something that could have affected you, they would tell you, right? After all the eyes of the public were on this mission pretty closely.

Still, you were left wondering exactly what had happened on that ship.

The last to arrive was, of course, Green. Did Green ever do anything but sleep? You wondered if he had some sort of medical condition that made him sleep all the time, but if that was the case would he have passed the physical exam? Regardless, you were all here now, so you turned your attention to the group. 

The commander began to speak, going over different procedures and roles for the launch of the spaceship. Luckily the technology had been advanced enough where the majority of the actual takeoff procedure was done by mission control and the group that had training. For a minute you were worried you would end up with an important task, mess it up, and get everyone killed. Instead everyone was to sit inside a small room, strapped into chairs along the wall. A few boxes were secured to the floor in the middle of the room, but even so you were nervous they would shift with takeoff and go hurtling around the room.

Despite being unable to see anyones faces, you could tell that everyone was anxious. Even Red was quieter than usual, not making his usual flirtatious comments that annoyed the living daylights out of all the females. Lime’s kid, who you had begun to call little Lime was holding tight to his father while Cyan was fidgeting with the strap on her seat. Yellow and Purple were whispering to eachother, Green was actually not asleep for once, and Brown and Orange were simply looking at eachother in a mutual understanding of terror. Blue was staring at yet another crumpled paper in his hands, this one looked like a photo. Finally, Pink was checking to make sure everyone was strapped into their seats properly and Black and White were up in the navigation portion of the ship to help actually take off. Even the people with extended training had never actually been in space before, so this was going to be interesting to say the least. 

*******

The launch itself had somehow been simultaneously better and worse than you had expected it to be. You had expected it to be more jarring with the force of more gravity on you than you had experienced in training, but it was actually less intense in that matter. The technology for this ship was far superior to what you had expected. However, your body was not taking the change in gravity and pressure very well. Despite the suit and the ship mitigating the change, you still were not feeling great. When it was finally safe to get out of your seat, you took a little bit longer than the others to get up. Obviously you were not the only one feeling it which comforted you a bit. You saw Red straight-up faceplant when he left his seat somehow, which was a signal to the crew that the artificial gravity was indeed working. Red half heartedly tried to pass it off as a joke, but it didn’t work very well. 

After everyone had adjusted at least enough to walk without falling over, the group exited the dropship and entered in to the main portion of the ship. Here there were the same amount of rooms, so everyone was supposed to stick with the roommates they had previously had. However, that ended up not exactly being the case. You and Yellow were good, as well as Purple and Cyan. As she had been earlier, Purple was adamant that she stayed with Cyan in the same room no matter what. White and Black begrudgingly stayed together because of their ranks, and Lime had his own room to share with his kid. However Red was fed up of living with Green because he “needed someone that will actually talk to him.” It was decided that Blue would now bunk with Green, the two of them being quiet, and Red would share with Pink. It was obvious that Red would rather share with White and Pink would prefer Black, but Black felt that the two commanding officers needed to be together. Brown stuck with Orange because they had gotten pretty close, and there was no way either of them wanted to be in the same room with Red. 

After the rooms had been figured out, the crew was given freedom to mill about, exploring the layout of the ship or getting something to eat. Yellow had been feeling pretty ill, perhaps this was the universe’s playback for her not getting ill when you arrived at MIRA HQ, so she went to lie down in your room. You had a bit of a headache and were tired, but wanted to learn your way around the ship first. You also had tasks which you did not have to have finished until much later, but Blue had apparently already started on his. 

Coming to the conclusion that a drink of water might help your head, you headed to the cafeteria. Promptly you were distracted by the giant window on the opposite side of the room through which you could see the expanse of space. Several others were staring out to the distant stars and the blue marble that was Earth, slowly shrinking in the distance. You were going extremely fast it seemed. Orange had an arm over Brown’s shoulders, and the two of them were staring out at the stars together. Cyan was taking a picture with her tablet’s camera and Purple was pressing a hand against the window. Not wanting to disturb anyone, you resolved to come look at the window a little bit later. 

Instead, you turned back to the cafeteria and grabbed a drink of water, as well as a small energy bar. Perhaps getting something in your stomach would settle it, but you avoided anything large in case that was the exact opposite of what you needed. You took your snack and your drink to a table where Lime was sitting with his little boy.

Lime’s son, who had been jumping all over the table as if he was on some sort of sugar high when you came in, was sitting on the floor beside the table, tapping away on a tablet. At first you paid no mind to it, but then you noticed that the tablet that he was playing on was not his dad’s. Everyone’s tablet had been given a case that matched their suit color, and the device the child was holding did not match the lime green of his and his dad’s suits. Instead it was a slightly familiar silver color, for a moment you almost got it mixed up with your gray one. 

Something clicked in your mind. Maroon and Teal had been in your room yesterday to look for Silver’s tablet. Could this be what they were looking for? Of course there was no way to get it back to him, but perhaps you could send the photos he was looking for to him.

Curious, you knelt down to ask the child. You wanted to ask his father, but Lime seemed busy with something on his device. For a moment you wondered if it would be weird to simply talk to someone’s child while their parent was distracted, but you had seen the other crewmembers talking to him before so you figured it was alright. 

“Hi!” You asked cheerfully. “What are you doing there?”

”Playing a game.” 

“Oh cool! What game?” You asked, trying to make conversation. 

He thought for a moment. “I dunno. I opened an app with a word that I don’t know what it says and it has a bunch of buttons. I’m trying to figure out how to win.”

”Well I hope you can figure it out.” You chuckled. “Who gave you the tablet?”

He paused for a moment, thinking. ”I found it under the table. Dad said I could hold it. I used to play with his but I broke it. There was a password but it was already open so I decided to play games. Everyone has games on their tablets, even my teacher last year!”

”Oh really? They sound like a cool teacher!” 

“Yeah!” He went back to pressing buttons. “Do you like to play games?”

”Yes, sometimes when I’m not busy.” 

“Oh! Maybe you can tell me what-“

Your conversation was promptly interrupted by a loud alarm, signaling that something had gone drastically wrong with a critical system onboard.

> **ALERT: _REACTOR MALFUNCTION_ \- ** _Reactor Meltdown in 90 seconds (0/2)_

Already? Well that was not something that you found super encouraging. Checking the alert on your tablet, you found out that it was an issue with the ship’s reactor that needed to be solved urgently. Immediately you were filled with adrenaline and promptly began to sprint to the crisis, ignoring the exhaustion you were feeling. Almost as if you were part of a hive mind, everyone in the cafeteria quickly rose to their feet and ran in the direction of the emergency. 

You could have sworn you passed nearly every single person as you ran towards the reactor, about nine to your count; a giant group of you all headed there with a shared goal to not explode. It was only your first day on this ship and already it was falling apart. It was obvious from the way people ran that some were much more panicked than others, some running calmly and with purpose, like Black, while others were franically falling all over the place as they ran, like Orange. Cyan was messing with something on her suit as she continued onward while Yellow was shaking with each step she took. Several times you almost tripped over your own boots. Despite the suits being lightweight, they were bulky and the change in gravity was a bit confusing. 

> **REACTOR MALFUNCTION** resolved

Thankfully the group managed to get there quickly and the emergency was promptly resolved. It turned out to be a rather simple yet devastating issue, but was easily fixed and reset with the scan of your crewmembers hands. Nearly everyone was there but Red and White got to the two panels first. A while after it had been resolved and people had stated to filter out of the reactor room, the two greens arrived. Green frantically running, apologizing about being late as he was apparently asleep, and Lime who had been comforting his now crying son.

After the adrenaline wore off, your exhaustion and headache came back and you were nearly ready to go to your room to lie down when another alert flashed across your tablet’s screen.

> **EMERGENCY MEETING** _(called by BLAP1)_

Black had used the (what had originally seemed ridiculous) safety measure described in your training: a giant button on the center of the cafeteria table that would order everyone to come to the room immediately. Sighing, you made your way back to the cafeteria, prepared to sit though a likely frantic meeting.


	9. [File 08: Compromised]

“What the **** happened?” Was the very first thing you heard upon entering the meeting. It seemed Red was at it again. “We all could have died!”

There was frantic muttering over the radio channel, everyone eager to express their fear over the emergency. What exactly had gone wrong? 

“Everyone, please.” Black attempted to get the frantic group’s attention. “Quiet down for a moment. Questions one at a time, after I stop talking.”

Slowly the chatter died down, but it was fairly obvious that everyone was reluctant to stop talking. Each of the crew members at the table seemed anxious in one way or another, which given the situation was understandable. Even you found yourself on edge, adrenaline now gone and replaced with lingering dread. You knew something was off about this whole thing, and now within a few hours of your takeoff the ship almost explodes. Was it too late to turn this around and go home? Yes, unfortunately. 

“Thank you. Now, as you all know, approximately half an hour ago our emergency alert system was triggered by a malfunction of the ship’s reactor. Due to our quick thinking we were able to resolve it without incident. My commendations to Red and White for being the ones to fix the issue. White, can you inform the crew of exactly what went wrong?”

”Sure.” White seemed to have completely changed his tone. His typical goofy matter had been exchanged for a way of speaking that rivaled Black’s sense of formality. “The problem came from a malfunction in the control system, a software error, as opposed to any sort of physical damage. This is mainly good news, it was much easier to correct and we do not have to worry about a physical malfunction. However, the error is much more complicated to fix, and at this point we cannot guarantee it will not happen again.”

“Thank you White. We are working to resolve this issue, but as we cannot determine a direct cause, it is hard to find the proper method to fix it. Please be prepared to respond to any further crisis.”

While it was presented as good news on the technical side, you had to admit that you were not thrilled about the fact that this could easily happen again. Many of your crewmates seemed to share that concern. 

“If we didn’t fix it, would the reactor actually have exploded?” Purple asked the group, nervous.

”There is a possibility, yes.” 

You could practically hear her gulp through the radio.

Black attempted to continue explaining, but everyone’s attention was promptly diverted when the doors surrounding the room managed to lock themselves shut.

Then the group exploded into chaos. Several were anxious, a handful were angry, and a few were stunned. Green was awake and paying attention which told you something. Lime was hugging his son close, and Brown and Orange were huddled close together. Yellow and Purple were anxiously messaging eachother while Cyan looked frantically around the room. Black, White, and Pink seemed relatively calm, but you could tell that this was a facade. Even the usually quiet and emotionless Blue had something to say. You were anxious as well, but you stayed quiet in an effort to avoid contributing to the chaos. 

The doors unlocked themselves rather quickly, but it took several minutes to get everyone back under control. Of course, under control was relative, but at least to the point where people had quieted down enough for Black to go through further explanation of the situation. Black tried to reassure the crew that the doors closing around them was not something to worry too much about and was only marginally successful. She apparently had already alerted both mission control and the previous crew about the reactor meltdown and was waiting for a response. 

In the end, the crew ended up getting the rest of the day off because of the obvious panic that everyone was in, both for the sake of mental well-being and the worry that someone would make an even worse mistake because of their anxiety. Instead you were instructed to get some food and relax as much as possible, either in your room or a common area such as the cafeteria. 

You decided to take your snack and drink back to your room, not necessarily feeling up to conversation. You still had yet to unpack your small amount of personal items, so you figured you would return to your room and do that.

As you left, you watched several other crewmates leave the room as well. Others sat down to eat or chatted nervously with eachother. Cyan had sat down next to Lime and his kid and seemed to be speaking to the two of them. They were out of range on the other side of the cafeteria so you were unable to hear what they were saying, but as you left you were able to see something odd. Lime said something to his son, who handed the tablet he had been playing with over to Cyan. Maybe they were planning to send Silver’s pictures to him.

Upon arriving in your room, it was obvious that your roommate was feeling the strain of space travel as well. She had a headache apparently, and was lying down on her bed with a wet towel on her face. You, also with a killer headache, decided to follow her example and lay down in bed. The stress of the incident coupled with the piercing noise of the alarm had exacerbated your headache to the point where looking at the lights bothered you.

”Oh. Hey Gray.” Yellow mumbled upon your arrival. 

“Hey.” You mumbled back. “Space getting to you too?”

”Mhm.” 

“Yeah, same.”

The conversation did not end up lasting long as the two of you slowly fell asleep. You were annoyed by a sudden barrage of alerts from your tablet, but at this point you were so tired that you ignored them. Literally anybody else could go fix whatever the issue was now. In hindsight, ignoring urgent alerts to sleep probably was a mistake, but all that mattered now was a good nap.

*******

Several hours later, you found yourself stirring. With sleep, your headache had improved enough where you could actually focus on something else other than the brain pain. That something else being the messages your tablet had exploded with.

> **GROUP MESSAGE:** _Crew/Mission2.018/All_

* * *

_24 unread messages_

> **ALERT:** _ **LIGHTING MALFUNCTION** -_ _Fix Lights 0%_

**BROWN** : did anyone else’s lights just go out?

 **BROWN** : orange and I were chilling in our room and it got dark

 **WHITE** : yeah lights are out in the cafe too 

**CYAN:** Wait did the lights go out everywhere?!

 **ORANGE** : I think so 

**PURPLE** : im getting kinda freaked out why isso much broken

 **BLACK** : Everyone calm down. If you can, head to the electrical room with me and we can find the problem.

 **PINK** : k 

**ORANGE** : wheres that

 **WHITE** : one word: map 

**WHITE** : jk off hallway from lower engine room to storage 

**RED** : ok im here how do I fix this 

**RED** : _(sent a photo)_

 **BLACK** : im almost there give me a second 

**WHITE** : wow red with that speed howd u get there so fast 

**RED** : I was already in here for a task

 **PURPLE** : I thought we were taking a day off?

 **RED** : too much of a headache to sleep, blues here too

 **PINK** : yeah, I’ve heard lots of people have headaches 

**LIME** : any idea when the lights are gonna be back on? my son’s freaking out.

 **BROWN** : soon, hopefully 

> **LIGHTING MALFUNCTION** resolved

**BROWN** : oh cool, they’re back on

 **ORANGE** : ur magic lol 

**BLACK** : Ok, lights are fixed. 

* * *

So something else apparently broke while you were asleep. The malfunctions were becoming a legitimate concern at this point. You had not signed up for space travel on a ship that was falling apart. Well, you had not intended to sign up for any space travel at all, but that was beside the point. This was a serious threat to everyone on board, and it needed to be figured out immediately. 

For a moment you debated pressing that button in the center of the cafeteria to call a meeting, but decided against it for several reasons. One of which being that you did not want all the attention on you for calling the meeting. Second of all, you were doubtful that this counted as an urgent emergency. The others were probably already working on it, and you would probably just disturb their progress. You though about asking Yellow, but she was fast asleep on the other bed. Poor thing almost seemed to have it worse than you. 

Regardless, you figured you should at least go find someone to ask about the issue with the lights. You had realized you were unsure as to how you would fix them, at least from the picture Red had sent, so it was probably best to ask how in case it happened again. Normally you would not have paid too much attention to knowing how to fix something that had already been fixed, but with the way things had been going you were afraid that something would break again. 

Slowly, you stood up from your bed and exited the room, careful not to wake up Yellow. Now that you thought about it, you realized that you had not exactly checked the time when you were leaving, and it might actually be later than you thought. Regardless, you needed to get up and stretch your legs or something, you felt antsy with all of the things breaking around the ship. 

As you closed your room doors behind you, you turned around to see Red wandering the hallway. 

“Hey Red.” You greeted, trying to be civil despite your dislike for the man.

He must have not heard you, because he did not respond. Probably for the best at this point. Although, as you looked at him slowly shuffling through the hallway, you noticed he was in a sort of daze. Sleepwalking perhaps? 

You called out to him again. “Red, you ok?”

Still he didn’t respond. At this point you were a bit concerned, especially because he had apparently also had a headache today. Medical knowledge certianly was not your area of expertise, but you could immediately tell something was off by the way he moved. He wore his suit, so his face was not visible, making the entire thing more eerie. 

Perhaps it was the panic left over in you from the previous emergencies, but you felt as if you were in danger. Your crewmate was shuffling over to you in what seemed to be some sort of zombielike state- what if he was going to hurt you? It was not something that came from a rational sense of logic but an instinctive feeling of fear that coursed through your veins and caused your hair to stand on end. You were less then a second away from turning around and sprinting, when all of a sudden Red fell to the floor as if he were unconscious. 

As if the universe wanted to spite you, suddenly you heard frantic footsteps bounding towards you. You were glad help was coming, but were struggling to figure out how to explain this. It turned out to be Cyan, panting as she ran with her hands clutched around Silver’s tablet from earlier. She seemed frantic and panicked. 

“Hey! This is an emergency!” She yelled, trying to get you to clear out of the way. “I’m going to call a meeting and-“ She paused, looking at the scene in front of her. “What happened to Red??”

You took a moment to process her question. “Uh, I...”

Before you could finish, she took a step backwards, her hands shaking. You tried to ask her what was wrong, but she took another step backwards. As you tried to walk closer to her in an attempt to calm her down, she bolted in the other direction, one of the large doors of the ship closing behind her. 

Confused and worried, you decided to turn to make sure Red was alright before figuring out what Cyan had been so panicked about. But before you could do much, an alert rang out on your tablet for yet another emergency meeting.

> **EMERGENCY MEETING** _(called by CYAP9)_

Something was going on here, and you had to admit, you were not exactly in a great position yourself.


	10. [File 09: Consternation]

It took a while for the meeting to actually come to a start as Pink had to help Red into the medbay. Nobody knew exactly what had happened to him, but he was clearly not in the best physical condition. Everyone was curious, but as the doctor, Pink was not allowed to share any detailed information as to what made him so sick. They had done check-ups on several others complaining of headaches and other ailments to various degrees, but nobody else seemed to be as affected as Red had been, that you knew of at least. Green looked about ready to pass out from exhaustion, but at this point you were convinced that was normal for him. He had insisted the doctor not see him, so whatever it was that made him so tired must gave not been that big of a deal. 

Eventually the meeting formally started. 

“What happened?” Asked Black.

Cyan started, taking a moment to calm herself down. For some reason she had been legitimately terrified. 

“I was running to go hit the button because I figured something out, but as I was going to hit it, I saw Gray standing next to Red who was on the ground. I freaked out because... well I thought something had happened to him.”

”Why would you run in the opposite direction then?” You asked, genuinely confused. A few people turned to look at her, questioning the motive as well.

She looked down for a moment, fiddling with her hands. “I thought you had hurt him somehow.”

Murmurs arose from everyone at the table, eyes flicking back and forth from Cyan to you and back again.

You were incredibly confused and concerned as to why she would think that, but before you even began to dive into that, you quickly began to explain what had happened from your point of view. Nobody seemed to be paying much attention to your story though, so you were unable to finish. It really did not matter much though as everyone had moved on to the new, possibly more urgent topic by then.

”Why would you assume that?” White pressed, almost annoyed. 

“Well, uh, let me explain what I figured out first.” Cyan sighed, grabbing Silver’s tablet that she had set on the table. “This is Silver’s tablet, he left it on the ship when they all got off. I saw Lime’s son playing with it when we were in the last meeting, and he had up some sort of app that looked like the ship. When the doors closed around us, I noticed that he had pressed the button at the exact same time. It could have been a coincidence, so I went to ask Lime when his son started playing with the tablet.”

”Lime can you confirm this?” White asked with a surprising aggression. 

“Woah is this an interrogation? Yeah I can confirm it. My son here found it under the table and I had to finish a download task so I let him play with it. This happened before the reactor broke, so that kind of confirmed Cyan’s suspicions. I let her take a look at it and see if that was what had happened.”

White seemed satisfied with that answer, so Cyan went back to talking.

”I found a bunch of weird stuff on there in an application that our tablets don’t have. One option was to sabotage different systems on the ship like the reactor and the doors.”

”How did you figure that out?” Asked Black.

Cyan looked down sheepishly. “Remember when the lights went out...”

Everyone looked at her with varied expressions ranging in intensity from amused to burning rage. 

“Yeah we remember” Orange looked to Brown and the two of them laughed sheepishly. “My body still hurts from when you fell on top of me.”

“That was YOU?” Purple asked Cyan, while seeming surprisingly frustrated at this. 

“Why didn’t you tell us?” Asked Black. “You’re supposed to report to the commander for things like this.”

”Well to be fair there’s no protocol-“ Purple began but was cut off. 

“This doesn’t concern you, Purple.” Black stopped her. 

Cyan looked as if she was going to either hyperventilate, burst into tears, or both. “I know but I was just scared.” She whipped her head around anxiously, looking at everyone before continuing. “Oh boy this is probably gonna get me killed.”

Several confused mumbles went around the room.

”Just tell us what you found out, Cyan.” Black tried to be calmer but ended up being more intimidating.

”Well in this sabotage app there was another version some things like the messaging system and the task list. I was curious, so I looked at the tasks, and it wasn’t a list of real tasks. They were all fake.” She picked up the tablet and tapped in it for a few seconds. 

“How did you know they were fake? You would have to ask Gold and we can’t reach their station right now.” White asked.

”I’m pretty sure they’re fake.” She said as she turned the screen to show everyone the list. Glancing quickly at the list it looked relatively normal, but upon closer inspection the list was labeled ‘fake tasks’. However, that small detail was largely overshadowed by the glaring red message at the top: 

> Sabotage and kill everyone

As to be expected, nearly everyone broke out into a panic. Lime was freaked out by the fact that his son had been playing with this hacked tablet with instructions to kill people. Yellow had started shaking and holding back tears, and before you knew it she had flung into the closest person to her for a hug. This just so happened to be you, which caught you off guard, but the poor girl seemed terrified so you decided to let her hug you. The only people who did not at least show a bit of concern were Blue and Pink. Pink was trying to keep a calm facade, and seemed to be thinking over something, when the quiet Blue actually spoke. 

“It’s gotta be fake.” He simply said. “Someone left it to mess with us, or maybe it’s Cyan messing with us.”

“No! Why would I do that?”

”I dunno, some people have a sick sense of humor.”

”It could be fake.” Reasoned Pink. “I was actually wondering about that too. Why would someone leave a trail that was so obvious? Although I don’t think it’s Cyan. I think she got duped.”

”From what I know of her, I don’t think she would do that.” Brown stated.

”If it was fake then why would it be able to close doors and things?” Asked Lime, still worried but hopeful that it was fake.

”Maybe it was a coincidence.” Blue offered. “Look, I don’t care, I just want to get my tasks done without whatever this is supposed to be.”

”We have to treat this as if it is a real threat.” Black stated, which seemed to annoy White. “It’s likely a hoax, and if it is found to be one, Cyan, you will be in a whole world of trouble” The crewmate in cyan shrunk back into herself, seemingly worried that she had been wrong. “But in case it isn’t, we have to be cautious.” 

“Do we know for sure this is Silver’s tablet?” Asked White. “Gray has one a similar color, and I saw them talking to Lime’s kid earlier.”

You promptly pulled yours out to show them. “This one is mine, the color is darker and not as reflective as that one.”

Yellow had since released you from the hug and mentioned something, voice still shaking. “Maroon and Teal were in our room looking for Silver’s tablet. They thought he left it in there when he was staying with us.” 

“I can confirm.” You agreed. 

“Ok. So it looks like it was his tablet.” Orange agreed.

“So, if this is legitimate, Silver had a tablet that was telling him to murder everyone and could break the ship.” Brown simultaneously seemed worried and unconvinced.

“But why?” Asked a tired Green. “What’s the point?”

Nobody had an answer for him.

”You know, this would explain why that night, Peach got even more freaked out when the lights went out and Silver walked in.” Purple proposed. “They must have been scared of him in particular.”

”Y’all, this is crazy.” White sighed. 

“Think about it, White.” Black said in a low tone. “Something happened on that mission with the last crew that they weren’t telling us. All of them seemed freaked out and Gold was definitely hiding something. After we told them what happened with Peach, even HQ wanted our two groups separate.”

”Which reminds me, I haven’t been even able to contact mission control recently. Them or the crew we left.” White trailed off. 

It was silent for a moment until Pink spoke.

”I really don’t want to say this, but...” They sighed. “Do you think there’s a reason the returning crew was so small?” 

Everyone was silent, understanding what Pink was implying. Maybe the mission originally left with more people, but some of them died on the way. Died, or were _murdered_. 

“Why wouldn’t they tell us?” Asked Yellow, shocked. “Did they even tell their families? And the crew we left...” 

“... we probably can’t talk to them cause they’re dead.” White stated matter-of-factly, making Yellow burst into tears again. 

“Way to go, man.” Said Brown as she went to comfort Yellow.

“Alright this is getting out of hand.” Blue spoke again. The entire crew was surprised at how talkative he was being. “I’m going to go work on my tasks. Let me know if you all stop with the conspiracy theories.” He got up out of his seat and headed off towards the right side of the ship. 

Black called out to him. “You can’t just leave a crew meeting like this!”

Blue had already left the room, much to Black’s annoyance.

”Well, listen everyone.” She began. “No matter what happened with the other crew, we are separate from them. Even if the worst case scenario is true, Silver is not on our ship. None of them are. I’ll be taking his tablet so nobody can accidentally or purposefully break anything on the ship. I’ll keep trying to contact HQ and the crew to see if we can get any info, but in the meantime take a deep breath. Even if Silver was a murderer, he can’t get to us here.” 

The group seemed to calm some, but not entirely. White made his last closing comments.

“There’s not much we can do here, but be cautious. If you even think you see anything suspicious, you let Black or I know immediately. Now go try to get some rest tonight.”

And so the meeting was adjourned. White and Black stayed in the cafeteria talking to Cyan while people broke off in different directions. At this point it was getting late and although you had slept through most of the day, you were exhausted. You and Yellow had decided to stick together for safety, and Brown and Orange joined you on the walk back to your room. You had to admit, you were likely too anxious to fall asleep, but you at least wanted to lie down. At this point you had begun to get used to the dull pounding of your space headache, but it was still unpleasant and the stress of the meeting had made it flare up again. 

So you and Yellow went straight to bed, double and triple checking your door to make sure it was locked. It would be a miracle if you managed to get any sleep tonight.


	11. [File 10: Corpse]

You had been right to question exactly how much sleep you would be getting as it became glaringly clear that it would be very little. Your fear combined with the clanking of different machinery all through the night made it difficult to get some shut-eye. It was impossible to get an estimate of exactly how much sleep you got as you attempted to for the entire night, but were constantly woken up by both fear and the noises rattling through the ship. The amount of hours you spent staring at the ceiling above you likely outnumbered the amount of hours you spent actually asleep.

Regardless, the new day had apparently started, although it was incredibly difficult to tell without the rise and fall of the sun. The ship did its best to adjust lighting to your circadian rhythm, but Yellow had insisted you kept the lights on while you sleep. Regardless, your sleep schedule had been erratic long before you found yourself in space. You were still feeling a bit worse for wear, but did not dare to complain after Red had literally collapsed the other day. 

After checking your messages, you were reminded of the fact that today you had to resume your tasks. Of course, resume them as long as nothing else decided to spontaneously break, or be sabotaged. Although you were leaning towards the latter at this point, considering there had not been a disaster after Black took that tablet yesterday. This was somehow both relieving and concerning, there would likely not be any more emergencies but also this meant that Silver’s instructions to kill people could have been legitimate. A cold shiver ran down your spine at the thought. 

Your roomate Yellow seemed on edge as well after yesterday, so the two of you decided to stick together for your tasks today. Sure it would be less efficient, but considering the fact that the both of you slept in the same room and nothing disasterous had happened, you trusted eachother well enough to form an alibi should anything weird happen again. Also, you were both scared and still adjusting to space, so maybe two pairs of shaky hands would be better than one when it came to completing tasks. 

First off, after grabbing some breakfast in the cafeteria, the two of you headed into the electrical room. Something about that room in particular gave off really creepy vibes, and you nearly jumped a mile in the air when you saw Green standing in front of the plate for the wires.

”Oh! Green you scared me!” Yellow exclaimed, relieved. “We didn’t see you when we walked in, but you were on the other side of the room.”

”Yeah.” He said tiredly. “The box that controls the lights blocks your vision from the door. Also it’s pretty dark in here, you might not have seen me.”

While his first statement seemed reasonable, the second was a little off. Sure it was not the most well-lit room, but both you and Yellow still recalled seeing far enough into the room to have not seen anyone as you entered. 

Green shrugged it off and continued fiddling with the wires while you headed over to do what you had dubbed the ‘circle task’. It had sone fancy name or something, but really you just had to press some buttons in accordance with some lights. You had absolutely no idea what the purpose of this was supposed to be, but it was on your list. Yellow was standing in front of some sort of file transfer system, downloading some data she would later have to upload to HQ.

As you struggled with getting the circles to stop on time, you noticed Green taking his time when it came to connecting the wires. You could not help but wonder how hewas still struggling to complete the relatively simple task. 

“Hey Green, you alright?” You asked, watching as he began to get frustrated when he continually connected the wrong wires together. “You seem to be having some issues with that task. 

“I’m fine.” He assured you grumpily, once again trying to connect the pink wire to the red wire. “Thanks for your concern.”

At this point, Yellow had finished her task and was ready to go when she also noticed that Green was having trouble. She asked him if he was ok as well, and at this point he was getting angry.

”I’m fine, will you two just leave me the **** alone?” 

You and Yellow exchanged a glance, unsure of exactly how to proceed here. It was probably best for you to just move on, but you were worried for Green. It was not that hard of a task, but clearly he was very sleep deprived, which might have been making the task more difficult for him. As you tried to figure out what the best way to approach this situation would be, two others walked into the room. Thank goodness.

”What’s up everyone?” Brown greeted, Orange following right behind her.

”Hey Yellow, Hey Gray, Hey Green.” Said Orange. 

“Hello!” Yellow greeted. “How are you!”

”Oh we’re doing ok, thanks. Orange and I decided to keep an eye out for eachother, we are still a bit freaked out about last night to be honest.”

You agreed and explained that you and Yellow had decided to do the same thing. “Great minds think alike I suppose.”

Brown watched Green for a moment as he struggled with the wires, and then typed something on her tablet.

> **DM:** _Crew/Mission2.018/GRAP0, ORAP5, YELP6, BROP12_

* * *

BROWN: Hey is Green ok? 

GRAY: I’m not sure. He’s been trying to do those wires for a while. 

YELLOW: I think hes really tired again. :(

ORANGE: is he ever not tired?

BROWN: Should we try to help him?

GRAY: we both tried asking and he just got angry

* * *

Yellow turned to watch Green for a moment and suddenly a look of realization dawned on her face.

* * *

YELLOW: does anyone have a pen?

BROWN: I have a permanent marker, does that work?

YELLOW: Perfect! Even better!!!

ORANGE: Why?

* * *

Yellow took the marker from Brown and walked over to Green, everyone watching in silence. She scooted over next to him and began to grab wires one by one. 

“What are you doing?” Green grumbled, trying to pull the wires away from Yellow as she snatched them. “I’m perfectly capable of doing this myself.”

Yellow avoided saying anything and instead grabbed the wires one by one, marking something on each wire with Brown’s pen. Annoyed, Green had given up trying to attach the wires together and instead allowed Yellow to continue whatever she was apparently doing. It only took a moment for her to finish, and when she turned back to the grip she seemed very pleased with herself. 

“I labeled them for you!” She said. “My brother is colorblind, and he struggled with colors a lot like you are right now. I though maybe I could help you in the same way I helped him when he was little.”

Green thanked her curtly, then went back to the wires with a huff. It appeared Yellow’s strategy had worked as he quickly finished the task. At this point, however, it was a bit awkward, because everyone had been essentially standing around and waiting for Green to finish his task. Everyone seemed to realize this at this point, and you decided that it was probably best to leave.

You and Yellow planned to head off to complete tasks in the reactor, and Brown said she had a task there as well. She had been planning to hang out in electrical while Orange finished a task she had to do there, but Orange insisted that Brown go with the two of you. She would catch up after. Green was also done, but was headed in the other direction towards shields. So you, Yellow, and Brown went off to the left while Green walked over to the right. Orange gave brown a short hug before you parted, and then you split off. 

“How have you been adjusting to space?” Asked Brown, attempting to make conversation. “I’ve had a bit of a headache for a while, but I’ve heard it’s been worse for some others.”

”I’ve had a headache too.” You agreed. “It was bad for a while, but I’ve almost gotten used to the pain in my head by now.”

Yellow nodded. “Yeah, I was feeling it too. I’ve also been really dizzy and tired, you know the tired part firsthand Gray.” She chuckled. “I’ve been sleeping a lot.”

”You would think our training would prepare us for this.” You mentioned.

Brown rolled her eyes. “Yeah right. I’m suprised we learned anything in training. I’m not exactly the type you’d pick for an astronaut.”

”What makes you say that?” Yellow asked. “None of us had ever really planned to be astronauts.”

”I dunno, guess I just feel like I don’t fit in. My only real friend around here is Orange.”

”Well we’ve just met. I’m sure if you give it time you’ll get close to the others. I can’t say I’m super close with anyone yet either.” You explained. “In fact I’d say you’re closer to her than anyone else is with eachother.”

Brown’s cheeks flushed as she looked down at her feet. “Anyway!” She burst out rather awkwardly. “Would you look at that, we’re here!” 

And sure enough, you were there. The three of you had arrived in the reactor room, ready to get a few more tasks out of the way before lunchtime. You talked as you worked, taking turns at the tasks that multiple people had been assigned to do. The fact that multiple people were assigned the same task seemed redundant, but in order to register them as complete each person had to do the tasks assigned to them. Orange suggested it was a sort of failsafe, to make sure the tasks were completed correctly. Despite the strange situation and the monotony of task work, you and your crewmates were managing to have a decent time. 

Looking back, you would later realize that this one simple moment, a few unremarkable minutes where you were blissfully unaware of it all, completely oblivious to the fact that everyone was in mortal danger, would be the last time you felt truly at peace. 

But in that moment, you were almost grateful for the distraction when an emergency alert rung out through the ship. Yet, you wouldn’t be grateful for long. 

> **EMERGENCY MEETING** _(called by BLAP1)_

Because when you arrived at the table in the cafeteria, looking out over the solemn faces of your leaders and the glimmering trails of tears down some of your crewmates’ faces, you knew that this was something far worse than you could have imagined. 

“What’s going on?” Brown asked warily. “Did something happen?”

”Everyone sit down at the table please.” Black simply stated. 

“Where’s Orange?” Brown spoke again, glancing around the room. 

“Sit down. Please.” Black reiterated herself. 

Slowly everyone found a seat at the table, nobody daring to speak a word. It was ad if everyone knew that something terrible had happened. As if they felt it. Brown especially. 

“Where is Orange?” She demanded again, stronger this time. “I need to see her.”

”Brown please...” White asked, defeated. 

“I am not sure how exactly I am supposed to say this.” Black started, looking simultaneously more and less stoic at the same time. “But your crewmate Orange is no longer with us.”

”What do you mean?” Brown asked, tears forming in her eyes.

”Orange is dead.”

Everyone was silent. Your heart sunk down into the floor, and the entire group was in a state of shock. 

“Dead? What do you mean dead! Black what are you saying? What-“ Brown jumped out of her seat and ran to Black, desperate to have misheard her. 

Pink took over the conversation. “Orange was found dead in the electrical room. We tried our best, I tried my best, but she was already long gone by the time I got to her. I am so, so sorry.” 

Brown was early screaming at this point and all of Black’s attention had been tuned to her, so White continued the meeting. 

“Unfortunately, As absolutely horrible and tragic as this is, it gets worse.”

”How? How could it get worse than her being DEAD?” Brown screeched, sobs interrupting her words. 

White looked around silently for a moment, avoiding eye contact with anyone in the room, before explaining. ”We have reason to believe that this was not an accident. This was a _murder._ ” 

The room erupted into panic. Everyone began to talk over eachother, asking questions, voicing concerns, and generally crying or hyperventilating. 

“How do you know for sure?” Seemed to be the overwhelming majority of the questions, so that was the first one answered.

”Pink?” White asked, figuring they could explain the situation better. 

Pink sighed reluctantly, but then spoke. “Orange was stabbed several times with what we assume was a knife. So much damage was done that even if we had gotten to her sooner, we would have only prolonged her suffering. It was... messy. I hate to have to tell you this but, she didn’t die peacefully.”

Brown at this point was so inconsolable that Black had left with her to another room. It was heartbreaking to hear, and worse to even imagine what Brown was going through right now. That sound, the sound of tears and screams formed by pure anguish was something you would never forget. 

“As much as I wish we could just let you all process this, we can’t afford to.” White stated. “We have lost all communication with Earth. We cannot contact any other spaceships or space stations. We are all alone out here, and our suspicions from Silver’s tablet have been confirmed. There is a murderer, someone who has posed as a member of our crew only to take an innocent life, a..” He paused, trying to figure out what to say.

“An impostor among us.” Suggested Purple.

“And we have come to a conclusion.” Stated Black, As she walked back into the room. “This decision was not made lightheartedly, and we are fully aware of the consequences should we get it wrong. However, we have no choice. We have no communication with anyone. We are all alone in space with a murderer on the loose. So, we have no choice but to resort to drastic measures.” She had made her way back to the table, looking each and every crewmate in the eyes before proceeding. 

“We will one by one explain where we were and what we were doing. If something doesn’t check out, we keep note of it. After everyone has given their testimony, we will take a vote. Using the poll system, we will be able to cast votes for who we think the impostor is. Whoever gets the most votes, no matter what, is who we accept as the impostor, and we deal with them accordingly.”

Sonething about the way she said ‘deal with’ made everyone uneasy. 

“So, we will go through, explaining our stories in order, and at the end, we vote.” She scrolled through something on her tablet before looking you straight in the eyes.” Gray, you first.”

So you explained where you had been, and as you spoke the others you had seen corroborated your story. Yellow was with you the entire time, so your story cleared the two of you. Brown was also clear, not just from her reaction alone but because she was with you when the murder had to have happened. 

Pink had been with Red in medbay. Apparently Red was still unconscious after last night, which was something else to worry about. So the entire time Pink had been either paying attention to Red or their tasks in medbay. The story seemed a bit shaky, to have your only alibi as an unconscious person, but Lime was able to corroborate and say nobody left that room.

Lime had chosen to watch the security cameras, which would have seemed weird to do instead of tasks, but in retrospect ended up being a good idea. When asked about this, he said that after all of that with the tablet, he was a bit on edge and worried for his son. Several people had seen the blinking lights indicating the cameras were on, so he was good. 

Purple and Cyan were together as always, mostly on the right side of the ship. Each of them had several tasks in navigation, and Blue was pretty certain he had caught a glimpse of them while headed to shields. That was where he had met Green, after Green had left electrical. 

Blue had started out in weapons, destroying some asteroids before he had gone down to shields. The ship had not run into any asteroids, so it seemed pretty fair to assume had had accomplished his task. Also Cyan stated that she could hear the firing of the weapons from navigation. As much as Blue wanted to rule the death out as an accident, even he saw that there was not really any other explanation. 

Black and White had been together in communications, trying to figure out why and how the communications stopped working. Everything contained to the inside of the ship was fine, such as the cameras and tablet network, but any time any signal was sent back to Earth or anywhere else in space, it never made it to its destination. This was beyond something the sabotage tablet could do apparently, as it only messed with things on the ship directly, so the two of them had been trying to fix a possible mechanical error. After their attempts were fruitless, they had headed over to electrical to try flipping a fuse, and that was where the body was found.

Everyone had been vouched for in some way or another, which made this all the more difficult. From the way things were set up, this murder physically could not have happened. Everyone was accounted for at the time of the murder, so it was impossible to tell. Whoever had done this really knew how to cover their tracks. 

Looking around the room, everyone seemed anxious in one way or another. 

“We don’t have any strong leads.” Stated White, confirming what everyone knew. 

“How are we supposed to make any jugement then?” Asked Purple.

”I don’t know.” White sighed. “This is unprecedented. A murder, in space.” 

“But we can’t just let a murderer roam around the ship. What if they try to kill one of us next?” Yellow’s voice shook with her shoulders. 

“We shouldn’t do anything without evidence, but we also can’t stand around and wait for the murderer to kill someone again.” Pink mused.

Black brought the conversation back to the plan. ”So we vote. It’s the only thing anyone can think of. Maybe, we get lucky, figure out how it is. Maybe we don’t, but at least we did something.” 

> **GROUP MESSAGE:** _Crew/Mission 2.018/All_

* * *

**BLACK** _created a poll: “Who is the Impostor?”_

* * *

As much as everyone wanted to find another explanation, some other excuse for why this had happened, deep down everybody knew that this had been intentional. And, despite not having reached a consensus, the group had no choice but to blame the murder on someone. So you looked down at the screen in your hands, eyes lingering over Orange’s faded picture, and made your selection.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Poll 1: [Closed]


	12. [File 11: Controversial]

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Poll 1 majority- [Skip vote]: (47.5%)

You had chosen to skip voting. There was not enough evidence to implicate anyone at this point, so you had chosen to play it safe. The risk of accusing the wrong person ended up outweighing the chance that you were right on any suspicions you had. Of course, your vote was only one of the votes, so you had to wait and see how your crewmates had distributed theirs. 

It turned out that the polling system had a nifty visual graphic to see who had voted for which option, or in this case which person. It quickly became clear that this had been a very close vote. 

Neither Red nor Brown had weighed in, which was understandable as Red was probably still unconscious and poor Brown was sobbing off in another room somewhere. 

Pink, Black, Lime, and White had all voted for Green, most likely because he had been the last one in the area. It made sense after all, but there was a portion of you that had wondered if it was too convenient. After all, you had seen him leave. So instead you had voted to skip, which ended up tying the vote four to four. Your indecision had saved Green’s behind. For better or for worse, it was impossible to tell. Yellow, Cyan, and Blue has also skipped. 

Then there were the two outliers. Purple had voted for Pink for some reason, which everyone found odd considering Pink had been cleared. However, what was even more suspicious, was the fact that Green voted for Brown. This did not go over well for obvious reasons.

“Green why the **** would you vote for Brown? Can’t you see she’s devastated?” Pink practically screamed. 

”I panicked, ok? I thought everyone was accusing me, and if weren’t for that final vote, you all would have done who knows what to me!”

”So why didn’t you skip?” Pressed White.

“I was scared, like I said, I didn’t think! I wondered if maybe Brown did it and was manipulating us, but in hindsight that seems stupid.” 

Black attempted to silence the argument. “That’s enough, you two. The vote has already been decided.” 

“I just wanna know why so many people voted for me! Like what the **** did I do?” Green slammed his hands on the table in frustration.

”You were the last one in electrical.” White pointed out. 

”Oh please, I was there with Brown, Yellow, and Gray. Any of them could have done it, or maybe someone was lying about where they were!”

”Everyone else has an alibi.” Black explained, trying once again to calm him down. “That’s probably why. You were just unlucky.”

”Blue vouched for me after I left! We met up in shields, don’t you remember?”

Everyone looked at Blue for confirmation, and he just nodded. 

“Who’s to say the murderer is working alone?” Pink theorized. Everyone turned to look at them. 

“Of course you would say that, _Pink_.” Purple rolled her eyes. 

“Woah what did I do?” They asked, confused. At this point, you recalled that Purple had voted for Pink in the poll. 

“Oh you know what you did.” Purple scoffed. “Your only alibi? Unconscious. Seems a bit sus to me.”

Pink took a moment to breathe before replying. ”First of all, Lime confirmed that I never left the room, and several others confirmed that he was watching the cameras. Second of all, ‘sus’? What is that supposed to mean?”

”It means suspicious.” Cyan translated. “Purple can’t say suspicious so she just shortens it to ‘sus’.”

”In what context have you... ugh never mind.” Pink sighed, clearly annoyed at the situation. “My point is it couldn’t have been me because I never left the room, and there’s evidence for that.”

”You mean you never went out the door.” Purple mumbled under her breath.

”What was that?” Pink asked.

Cyan gave Purple a soft nudge, and Purple dismissed her previous statement. “It was nothing. Never mind.” 

“Now _that_ was sus.” White commented, mostly joking. He laughed a bit before Black shot him a glare and he returned to being serious. 

“Anyway, what exactly would have happened if you had gotten a majority vote on me?” Green said nervously. “Were you planning on locking me in a room till we got back to Earth or...?”

The two leaders looked at eachother with a look of uncertainty. 

“Yeah that was pretty much the plan.” Stated White. “Honestly there’s no protocols for this.”

“Again, we tried to contact home but the communication system is shot.” Black explained. “Regardless, whoever did this will not get away with it. It’s only a matter of time until we figure it out.” She paused, taking a deep breath. “As for now everyone is to stay in pairs or small groups. I know most of you have been doing that already, but it’s a requirement now.”

”So Black and I” started White. “Then, who else?”

”I’m with Cyan.” “I’m with Purple.” The two stated at the same time. 

“I’ll stick with Gray.” Yellow said. 

“Yeah, we’ve been together a lot, so it makes sense. I trust her.” You agreed.

“Right, Ok. Green? Who’s with Green.”

Everyone left in the room looked uncomfortable. 

“Oh come on, you didn’t want him here, you should have voted for him. “ White rolled his eyes.

Blue then raised his hand. “I don’t think it was Green. I’ll be with him.” 

“Thank you.” Green huffed. “At least I can count on someone in this death trap.”

Yikes. Poor choice of words there Green.

”Alright. Now Pink is going to be in Medbay with Red and Brown. Red’s still asleep or something and Brown needs some extra support right now. That just leaves Lime. Pick a group, man.” 

He seemed unsure, and so did the others. It was really down to either you and Yellow or Cyan and Purple.

”He can come with us!” Yellow invited. “We’ll just be doing tasks, nothing too scary for the kiddo.”

”You Ok with that Gray?” White confirmed.

”Sure.” You shrugged. “The more the merrier.”

So the groups were decided, and all of you went off to complete your tasks for the day. Everyone was very unsettled and as much as Black wanted to give you all the rest of the day off, there had already been so many interruptions that hardly any tasks had been completed. You figured, at least doing something productive would get your mind off of Orange’s death.

*******

Your group had managed to complete a decent amount of tasks throughout the day despite the dread lingering in everyone’s minds, the three (and a half) of you had not talked much outside of what was necessary, and that was probably for the best. Little Lime was very eager to help his dad with his tasks, and the adorableness of him trying to do tasks helped lighten the mood a bit. The little boy even managed to shoot down an asteroid all without his dad’s help, which was honestly kind of impressive. Little Lime got so invested in helping with tasks he ended up also helping both you and Yellow, with your assistance of course.

Eventually, your tasks ended up taking you to medbay, so you headed inside with the others. The room was relatively crowded with six people and a mini crewmate running around inside, but you made it work. Your group entered to find Brown asleep on a cot, face still wet from tears. The three of you exchanged a look of pity for her and moved on into the room to find and greet Pink.

However all of you were suprised to find them talking to a no-longer-unconscious Red. Pink turned around to greet you, and seeing the surprise plastered across your faces, filled you in on Red’s situation. 

“Hey everyone. Red just woke up about an hour ago. From the examinations I’ve done on him, everything seems to be in order, which is a bit odd. I tried asking him if he remembered what had happened, but nothing.”

”Yeah.” He said, tiredly. “I just remember feeling kinda fuzzy, but not really much after. I don’t know what happened. Apparently I fainted in the hallway in front of you, Gray, which freaked out Cyan or something? I dunno I’m still a bit off here.”

”You’re ok.” You reassured Red. “You were sick. I’m just glad you’re ok.” Although your voice was calm, a shiver ran down your spine at the memory of that night. Illness or not, it was freaky and you had been scared for your life for a second.

The conversation shifted and Lime went over to do some sort of task with some samples. It was apparently going to take a while, so you and Yellow plopped down on the bed next to Red, resting for a moment. Red, despite being partially incapacitated, still found the time to make flirtatious comments to Yellow, who was obviously very uncomfortable.

“Why do you do that?” Asked Lime, clearly annoyed. “Can’t you just leave women alone, bro?”

”That’s how you get the ladies though.” Red winked. Despite him being injured, you were starting to think up a few reasons to punch him.

”Have you ever even had a girlfriend?” Lime laughed. “That’s not how they like to be treated.”

”Ive... been in a relationship before!” Red quickly got flustered and defensive. You could hear Pink chuckle to themself. 

“Let’s just move on, ok. I’m injured.” Red dismissed. Begrudgingly, the group let the topic go.

*******

Later that evening, as you walked back to your quarters, you couldn’t help but overhear a conversation coming from a distant hallway. Yellow had gone ahead a bit earlier and Lime had since left for his room, so at this point you were alone. Curious, you deviated from your course and went to look around the corner. From where you stood, there was no way to see who it was, but you could hear two people in a conversation. Silently, you moved to listen.

“You can’t say things like that! You’ll get yourself thrown off the ship.”

”But it was obviously Pink, they must have vented from medbay into electrical.”

”Ok, but think about it this way, from their standpoint: how would you know about using the vents unless you used them yourself?”

”... You make a fair point I guess. But counterpoint, also from their standpoint: why would an impostor rat out another impostor? ****, they don’t even know there could be two.”

“Oh, speaking of impostors, why on earth would you suggest that’s what we call the murderer?”

“Where’s the harm in calling it what it is?”

“But if they figure it out, they’d ask why on earth we have such a fitting name for it! How would we know it’s an alien?”

“You’re overthinking this.”

One sighed. ”Look, just, be careful. I know the two of us are in a unique situation here, but as long as we stick together and keep our heads down, we’ll be fine.”

”I just don’t want you to die, you’re like family to me.”

”I don’t want you to die either. Honestly, I’m terrified. We just have to stick together and we’ll be ok.”

”And if they figure it out?”

”Are you kidding me? The amount of conclusions they would have to jump to. They’re more likely to accuse me of being an impostor than figure us out.”

”I mean, you are pretty sus.”

”Me? In what universe?”

You heard the two laugh and then start to move, so you quickly drew back from your hiding spot and returned to the hall in front of your room. You watched that direction for a bit until Yellow called you out and asked why exactly you had been standing in the doorway. You assured her it was nothing worty mentioning immediately and headed into the room to get ready for bed, mind busy formulating theories as to the implications of that conversation.


	13. [File 12: Confrontation]

After the door to your room closed that night, Yellow promptly asked what exactly you had been doing in the hallway. For a moment, you hesitated. Could you trust Yellow with what you had overheard? 

You looked over your shoulder at her, thinking for a moment. Well she clearly had not been one of the two in the hallway, and she had plenty of opportunities to kill you, so you were pretty sure you could trust her. It was probably a decent idea to share what you had overheard with someone else anyway, as a sort of alibi. So, cautiously, you began to explain what you had heard to her.

“Do you know who it was?” She asked, after you had given a rundown of the conversation.

”I don’t know for sure,” you admitted. “But it was probably Purple and Cyan.” The two voices had sounded feminine, and one of them had used the word ‘sus.’ Granted there were other females on the ship, and anyone could use the word, but from the dynamic between the two and how secretive they were being? Not to mention Purple had voted for Pink. You were pretty sure it was them. You explained your reasoning to Yellow and she seemed to agree. 

“That makes sense. But I’m still a bit confused about the whole vent thing, what’s so weird about going in the ventilation shafts? Other than the fact that they’re very tiny and I doubt anyone could actually fit in there.”

“I’m not sure, to be honest.” Frustrated, you sighed as you plopped down onto your bed. “But they acted as if going in there was sone sort of death sentence. I think their theory is Pink killed Orange? Like they hopped into the vent, crawled over into electrical, killed her, then crawled back.”

”I mean, maybe.” Yellow paused for a moment and began looking around the room anxiously. 

“What’s wrong?”

She looked down, almost embarrassed. ”Do we have a vent in our room? Sorry if I sound paranoid, I just-”

“No!” You stopped her anxious ramble in its tracks. “You don’t sound paranoid at all! That’s actually a really good idea, to check around and make sure, just in case.”

”Really? You’re not just saying that?”

”No, really!” You assured. It would actually bring you some comfort to know that there was no way anyone could sneak in to your room.

So, before going to bed that night, you and Yellow checked everywhere possible in your room to confirm that there was no way to get inside besides the door. After a rather thorough search, you were satisfied that the only entrance and exit to your ship was the door, which could only be opened with your IDs. Eventually you felt safe enough to lie down for the night and try to get even a second of sleep.

*******

The next morning, just you and Yellow ate together. Since Red had woken up and seemed to somehow be in decent health, Lime had been reassigned to be his partner. It was fine, but you would miss working with him. His kid was kinda adorable, regardless of how you felt about kids. This arrangement was probably for the best though, as the two of you had been getting distracted easily and only really got tasks done yesterday. 

The two of you both ended up with tasks in Admin. You both had to swipe your cards, and you had to connect some wires. Yellow also had to upload the data she had downloaded in Electrical, so it seemed like the two of you would be there a while. However, as the two of you stood in there, attempting to finally get that card swipe to work, Yellow seemed to have an idea. 

“Hey Gray?” She asked.

”Hmm?”

”I was thinking, after what you told me last night, maybe we should go look at the vent? You know, the one in medbay?”

”That’s actually not a bad idea. If someone really was going through the vents, we might be able to find evidence of someone tampering with them.”

”That was what I thought. Maybe you should check the admin console, see if anyone is in there. It might look kinda weird if we’re snooping around.”

You nodded and walked to the other side of the table to look at the console. You saw the two of you together in admin, as well as the two you assumed was Black and White in Electrical. There were two people in security, and two others on the other side in navigation. It seemed that as far as you could see, everyone was sticking with their groups. From the map, you were able to confirm that nobody was actually in the medbay at the moment. “Nobody’s actually there right now.” You stated. “Maybe we should go now, before anyone else gets the same idea.”

Yellow nodded in agreement, and the two of you made your way over to the room. Sure enough, nobody else was in there. Good, it would be a lot more difficult to do your investigation if others were in the room. Slowly, you approached the vent, curious as to if there was any obvious damage to it. Approaching it, you could hear voices that sounded like Black and White filtering through, as well as someone else speaking who you assumed was in security. At least this confirmed that the three openings were somehow connected. 

However, oddly enough, the vent itself seemed to be practically untouched. Even all the screws that held the vent in the floor were in place, and the edges of the vent were perfectly straight. If anyone had gone inside, they would have had to be extremely careful as not not leave any traces. You contemplated looking for fingerprints, but realized that would have been silly because whoever it was was likely wearing gloves. 

All that aside, there was one more major flaw in the vent theory. The vent was too small. There was no way anyone could fit in there. Maybe Lime’s kid, but even then it would be a tight fit. Possibly without a spacesuit, helmet, and oxygen tank, someone small could fit inside. But still, they would not be able to move very far and certianly not crawl all the way to electrical. Not to mention that nearly everyone on the crew was either tall, large, or both and would have a hard time fitting into the vents. 

After looking at the size of the vent, Yellow was quick to give up, opting to take a nap on one of the beds in there instead. You were a bit frustrated as this had been her idea, but she was understandably freaked out by this whole thing and the idea of going near the vent made her nervous. It made you nervous too, and part of you just wanted to pass this information on to Black and White, but you avoided it for a few reasons. First of all, it would elicit a lot of questions that you did not feel comfortable answering. And secondly, you were struggling to trust anyone right now. You had no particular reason to be suspicious (or ‘sus’ As Purple put it) of your commanders, but it was better to be safe than sorry.

Still, despite it looking untouched, you wanted to get the vent open to look inside. Luckily, you had a small multi-tool with you that you were able to make work to unscrew the vent cover. It took a while, and you were constantly looking over your shoulder, but you managed to get it unscrewed without much noise. After placing the grate on the floor, you looked down inside.

You had not expected to see anything of consequence, but as you began to pull back, you saw the tiniest piece of fabric caught on a particularly rough joint between two metal sections. Could it have been from someone’s suit? If someone’s suit was punctured in some way they were required to report it immediately, as it could be fatal in an emergency, but perhaps they either did not notice or wanted to avoid suspicion. 

Regardless, you needed to get the piece. Because of the dim lighting in the vent, it was difficult to tell what color it was, but from your perspective, you might have been able to see just enough. 

You were unable to completely confirm it, but you could have sworn the piece was a shade of pink. 

This was the evidence you needed. From what you had overheard Purple say, this piece of fabric must have got snagged when Pink was either crawling to or back from electrical to murder Orange. And while it would not condemn Purple for sure, it was very suspicious that she knew about this ventilation travel system. There was a good chance she was also an impostor, or at least an accomplice somehow. 

Before you reached down to grab the piece, you snapped a quick picture with your tablet. You could not see the piece all that well in the picture, and the color was so dark that you could not make it out, but it was evidence nonetheless. Quickly, you took off your helmet for better maneuverability and reached down into the vent to grab the piece.

The piece was just out of the reach of your arm, so you moved in a bit further to grab it. It took several scoots forward to the point where your head was completely inside the opening along with your arm, but you managed to clasp the piece in your fingers. You had it. Solid evidence from the murderer themself. Quickly, you closed your dust around the piece of fabric to make sure it did not get lost.

You though the hardest part was over, until you realized that you were now partially stuck in the vent. And you were stuck pretty good. Thus began the struggle of trying to wiggle yourself out of the opening while pushing yourself up with your free arm. Several places on your body were sore and strained at this point. You thought about calling for help from Yellow, but you were pretty sure she was asleep, and any call for help would echo through the vents to the other rooms. Now that you had found the evidence it was not as big of a deal if someone saw you, but you were still trying to avoid being seen in a vent if possible. Regardless, as soon as you managed to get yourself out, you would have the evidence you needed and the ship would be safe again.

Right?

Of course it could never be that simple. The moment when you finally managed to shove yourself out of the ventilation system, Purple just so happened to walk in to the room. Your eyes met hers and panic rushed through your system.

Well this was a problem.

This was it. You were going to die. 

Purple must have figured out by now that you had overheard her talking about the ventilation system. From her perspective, if she was an impostor, the logical thing do would be to kill you right here and right now and blame it on Yellow. Cyan was not here for whatever reason, which was odd in itself, but that only made it easier for Purple to get away with it. Of course, it was likely the two had some sort of agreement from what you had heard last night, but you could not be totally sure. 

The only solution you could think of? Scream. 

The problem? Purple had backed you up into a wall, holding you by the throat, so screaming was not exactly an option.

”Don’t you dare make a sound.” 

You had never seen Purple as intimidating before, but right now she had a stare that could shatter glass from a mile away. Terrified, you nodded. 

“Good. Now I’m going to talk, and you’re going to listen. Understand?”

You nodded again, at this point a tear rolling down your cheek. She was holding you hard, so you were having a difficult time getting enough air into your lungs.

”I know you. I know your type. Sneaking around in the vents? Not a way to blend in i’m afraid. Crewmates, the real ones? They don’t go in the vents. Only people who do are impostors.”

Wait a minute... was she accusing you? You had been sure she was who you had overheard talking in the hall, and she was here to kill you. Maybe this was a distraction tactic. 

“It’s funny. I never would have expected it to be you. Granted I didn’t expect Pink either, but it all lines up. I’ve got both you and your buddy all figured out.”

You tried to mumble something and attempted to pry her hands off you, but she just sighed.

”Save your breath. I’m not gonna accuse you. I ****** up by voting for Pink there. These people? They don’t know anything. So if I go in there saying I saw you pop out of a vent, they’ll be asking how that’s evidence. It’ll probably get turned on me and I’ll get yeeted. I’m no stranger here, people will throw any chance they get.“

A part of you was relieved that she was not planning on accusing you, but you were still uncomfortable with the fact that she was putting the suspicion on you. You were also confused. She clearly was not a member of the last mission, but she claimed to have been though this before. 

“I just have one thing to ask of you.” Purple started again, less intense this time. “Please, just don’t hurt Cyan. We’re practically sisters, we’ve been through so much together and I can’t lose her. The two of you still have a chance if you leave us alive.”

At this point she had released you so you could speak. You gasped, taking in air to make up for your limited intake the past few minutes. 

“Please, Purple, just let me explain-“ You started, voice raspy, but she cut you off, back to her tough persona.

”I don’t want to hear it. I’m not calling a meeting, there’s no need to defend yourself.”

”But actually I have evidence and...” You burst into a coughing fit, still trying to gain back the air you had lost.

Before you could finish sharing with her what you had found, she walked out of the room, still tense from the conversation.

Understandably startled, you decided to go wake up Yellow so the two of you could get out of here. However, you found yourself a bit woozy, likely from the encounter, as your adrenaline disappeared. You had only taken a few steps before the room started spinning, and soon you toppled over. You swore you saw Yellow get up from the bed, probably at the sound of you falling over, but your vision was blurry at this point so it was difficult to tell. She did not seem to be approaching you immediately, so it could have been a trick of the eyes.

Deep breaths. You reassured yourself, reminding your body that you had enough air now and that you were safe. Despite being able to breathe clearly now, the dizziness seemed to be getting worse, and your anxiousness was not helping. As much as you tried to calm yourself and your body down, it was increasingly apparent that you were unable to fight the dizziness much longer. 

Eventually, you collapsed into unconsciousness; a gray heap on the cold, hard floor still clutching the vibrant piece of fabric in your fist.


	14. [File 13: Conniption]

A noise filtered through to your ears, slowly bringing your attention back to the world around you. 

It took a second to remember exactly where you were. You were on the floor. The floor was cold. How did you end up on the floor again?

Right. You had passed out. Because... because Purple had slammed you into the wall? That was something that had happened, right? You were still clearing your mind of the brain fog that had settled there. Although, it was hard to concentrate with that blaring noise assaulting your ears. What was that noise?

You slowly opened your eyes in an attempt to find the source of the noise. Immediately you had to shut them again as a bright light was flashing. Wait, a bright red flashing light? With sound? That was an emergency alarm.

Immediately, adrenaline brought you to your feet. You grabbed your tablet quickly to see where the emergency was. Ignoring the new notification that had popped up on your screen, you went to see where the alert was coming from. Apparently it was the reactor again. 

> **ALERT:** _**REACTOR MALFUNCTION-** reactor meltdown in 31 seconds _

Quickly, you steadied yourself and ran towards the reactor. You had been sure this issue was fixed before, right? It could be another sabotage, but that would not make any sense. The first ones were triggered by Lime’s kid playing with Silver’s tablet. The lights was Cyan trying to figure out if it was legitimate, and then the tablet was handed off to the commanders for safekeeping. So logically, unless someone had stolen it, or Black or White had triggered this, this was an actual accident. 

You had no idea how long it had been going off for, but as soon as you arrived at the reactor room, the alarm stopped. The room was quite full, so it was difficult to see exactly who was there, but it was safe to say it was either everyone or very close to everyone. Even Lime’s kid was running around, urgently tugging on the leg of Black’s spacesuit.

Quickly, upon turning around, Yellow’s eyes met yours and she immediately ran towards you. “Gray! I’m so glad you’re ok!” She shouted, enveloping you in a big hug. 

“Uh.. thank you.” You were caught off guard for a moment. 

“Purple told me what happened back in medbay. While I was asleep you apparently slipped and fell? I’m sorry I didn’t see you I should have waited to nap until later I was just tired and before I knew it I was asleep and-“

”It’s ok.” You reassured her. “I’m fine. It wasn’t your fault.”

While saying that, you shifted your gaze to glare at Purple. You knew very well that you had not simply slipped and fallen, and she knew that you knew that too. Yet you did not dare to mention what really happened in that room. 

Speaking of what had happened in that room, you remembered the piece of cloth you had found inside the vent. That could be the key to proving who the killer was! Unfortunately, you realized, the piece of cloth was no longer in your hand. When you got up to go run to the reactor, you must have dropped it. You had to go back and find it. 

You were about to try to think of an excuse to go back to medbay when Pink walked up to you and Yellow. 

“I couldn’t help but overhear that you hit your head and passed out.” They began. “I think I should check you out and make sure you’re alright.”

You thought for a moment. Well, from what you had found out recently, you were absolutely certain that you did not want to be alone with Pink. There was just too much to be suspicious about in regards to them, and if they had known you were looking for evidence against them? Forget ‘first do no harm’, that doctor was going to murder you. 

You panicked, trying to figure out exactly how to get out of this situation. Thankfully, Yellow was still close enough to hear the conversation, and suggested that both she and Purple go with you to medbay. “I feel bad about not seeing you earlier.” She explained. “I want to make sure you were ok. And I thought Purple should come too, since she saw you fall and everything.”

You were happy that Yellow wanted to come with you, as she was one of the few that you did trust, but you were nervous about Purple. Impostor or not, she was definitely in on this somehow. A lot of your suspicions on Pink had previously relied on what you had overheard Purple say, although with the fabric in the vent you had some actual evidence. Purple did seem to know a lot about the ventilation system though for supposedly not being able to enter it. If she was unable to go inside, how would she know that the vent from medbay connected to the one in electrical? Granted, she had accused you of being the murderer with nobody else around to hear it (besides Yellow who had been asleep), which would be a bit weird for the murderer to do. Still, you could not rule her out. 

Purple begrudgingly agreed to come with you two, as long as she could bring Cyan along. Cyan was confused as to how she had gotten wrapped up in this exactly, but agreed to be part of the group. That was what, four people now? The small room was going to get crowded rather quickly. Then another voice spoke up.

“Since you all are going in there anyway, and I have to do the inspect samples task, can I come with you?”

Everyone’s heads whipped around to confirm that they had heard exactly what they had heard. And it was true, Green was asking to come with you. 

Everyone had been wary of Green ever since he had almost gotten the majority vote last time. Nobody trusted him, which was a bit odd now that you think about it. Sure he was the last one in the room and took a while on his tasks, but he was apparently colorblind or something. Still, even though you had decided to skip, you could not find yourself trusting him, and neither did anyone else in the group. However, there was no way he would dare try anything in a group of six, so the other five of you agreed to let him come along. 

Your group in total now involved you, Yellow, Cyan, Purple, Pink, and Green. So basically all the main suspects, you and your roomate, and Cyan. This was not going to go well, you were sure of it.

Regardless of everyone’s reservations, you all headed towards medbay. To be honest you were getting sick of this room, it seemed nothing good ever happened in there. As you walked back, you realized that you had never gotten up to put the vent back together. When everyone walked in, they would see the grate still on the floor, and question why you had been messing with the vent. How were you supposed to explain this? Maybe you would just have to lie. Were you a convincing liar? Hopefully convincing enough to get them off your trail.

Yet, when you walked inside, the vent was all neatly put back together, as if nobody had ever touched it. What? 

Quickly, you looked back at Purple to see if she had put it back together, but she seemed just as confused as you were. Either she was lying, which you would not put past her, or she genuinely did not do it. Suddenly, a message rung out on your tablet. You looked at your screen to see who it was.

> **1 new GROUP MESSAGE** _(1 hour ago)_

> **UPDATE REQUIRED** : please restart _(1 hour ago)_

> **REACTOR MALFUNCTION** resolved _(10 minutes ago)_

> **1 new DIRECT MESSAGE** : YELP6 _(just now)_

The update had been there since before the reactor went off, and the other message was letting you know that it had been fixed. Those were not important. What caught your eye was the message from Yellow. Why had she messaged you when she could just talk to you? 

> **DIRECT MESSAGE:** _crew/mission2.018/GRAP0, YELP6_

* * *

**YELLOW:** did you put the vent back together?

* * *

Quickly, you typed a response. 

* * *

**GRAY:** no. Purple didn’t either. 

* * *

It took a while for Yellow to respond. You looked at her face, and she almost seemed relieved. You shot her a questioning look, and she went back to typing.

* * *

**YELLOW:** ok, I was just checking because I put it back together

 **YELLOW:** checking what you would say, I mean.

 **GRAY:** when did you put the vent back together? You were asleep when I passed out.

 **YELLOW:** it was after that. 

**YELLOW:** you and I need to talk, alone.

 **YELLOW:** somethings not right and I only trust you 

* * *

Where had that come from? You quickly looked to Yellow and nodded at her, acknowledging her message. Had Yellow seen what had happened? That would not make any sense if she had been asleep. Unless, she was not actually asleep. Was she using you as some sort of bait? Did she pretend to sleep when Purple was coming to see if she was going to kill you? Why had she not stepped in earlier then? The more you think about it, the more questions you did have for her.

However, you pushed that aside as Pink motioned for you to sit down on one of the medical beds. You sat cautiously as they pulled out their tablet to look at your information. While they were distracted, you tried to look around the room to see if the piece of cloth was on the floor somewhere, but it was fruitless. You did not see any trace of it anywhere.

“I see you already submitted your scan which is good.” They began. 

“Yeah, it was one of the first tasks I did.” You confirmed. “Seemed important.”

Out of the corner of your eye, you saw both Purple and Cyan pull out their tablets and type, likely messaging eachother. 

“Was anyone with you when you scanned?” Asked Purple.

Pretty much everyone else besides her and Cyan looked confused. Why would that matter? 

“Yes, actually. I remember, it was...” You trailed off. It had been Orange, who was now dead. You really did not want to mention her as her death was still fresh in everyone’s minds, and you were still processing it yourself. Yet, you had to answer honestly. Sure, if you lied, Yellow might back you up, but that would lead to questions. Besides, what if she had been with someone else? No, in this case it was just best to tell the truth, even though it would bring up a painful memory. “... it was Orange. She was the one who saw me scan.”

It got awfully quiet after that. Most people looked down, but there was Purple, staring you down from across the room. Yes, it was kind of weird that the only person who saw you scan was dead, but that did not prove anything. Orange died on this ship, why would her whereabouts matter on MIRA HQ? Actually, the fact that you had been alone with her for a while and did not murder her would be in favor of your innocence, right?

”Anyway.” Pink seemed understandably uncomfortable. They turned to the others. “Can you all, I don’t know, do something? Green came in here to do a task, and he’s the only one that should be in here. I know the rest of you suspect me or something, but this is excessive. I just want to give them a checkup because they hit their head on the ******* floor! I’m not even supposed to let anyone else in here during an appointment because of privacy regulations! So why don’t all of you get the **** out of here so I can make sure they’re ok!”

For a moment all was silent, and you had been sure that was the end of it. Both Purple and Cyan had turned to leave, but, to your surprise, the kind, soft Yellow who you doubted would ever even try to hurt a fly burst out in anger. 

“I’m not going anywhere.” She looked Pink directly in the eyes, clenching her fists in rage. 

Everyone was understandably suprised, but Yellow was not done there.

”Sure they can leave. Whatever. But i’m not leaving. I don’t give a **** about your privacy regulations. There’s a murderer on the loose, and you’re really ******* suspicious. So no, I’m not leaving my only friend on this **** ship alone with the two people I suspect most of being the murderer. Or, you know, guess what you two could be working together! So if someone would like to explain to me why it would be a good idea to leave my friend with the very person she was investigating for murder and just magically hope they don’t get killed, I would love to hear it. Until then, I’m staying with Gray whether you like it or not.”

As much as you loved Yellow and were honestly impressed by her dedication to her friend, you realized she had made a grave mistake.

She just told Pink you were investigating them.

“They were doing _what_ now?” Pink turned to you with a stare that could have murdered you all on its own.

You gulped and looked around the room, glancing at the variety of emotions on everyone’s faces. 

Pink lowered their tablet, turned around and began to storm towards the door. “You know what? I don’t give a **** if you’re hurt. If you want me to kill you so bad, **** it, I’ll just let you die to a ******* brain injury!” 

As Pink left in a fit of rage, all eyes turned to you. It was apparent you had some explaining to do, and frankly everyone else did too. But, since Yellow had just mentioned your unsolicited investigation, it was your turn to go first. 

So, slowly but surely, you explained everything. You were hesitant to mention the conversation you had overheard the other night, but without it, you story seemed suspiciously incomplete. So you told them everything, from the conversation to you and Yellow’s idea to investigate the vents, the piece of cloth you had found and then lost, and even how you _really_ passed out. Purple seemed extremely embarrassed at this part, especially when a still-fuming Yellow turned to look at her. You avoided mentioning how the vent got fixed because Yellow had seemed a bit odd about that. 

“Can I start off by apologizing?” Purple started after you had finished. “I didn’t know the whole story, and when I saw you coming out of a vent I just assumed... well, you know. I was scared for my life, so I freaked out. Fight or flight response, you know? I guess I just ended up picking fight. I really didn’t mean to hurt you, I just didn’t want to die.”

”How did you know about the vents though?” Asked Yellow. “I wouldn’t have thought of that.”

Purple sighed, and Cyan looked extremely nervous. “Well, Ok. This is going to sound... well it’s gonna sound how it’s gonna sound but Cyan and I know the truth and that’s all that matters. You see, her and I are in a very unique situation.”

Cyan’s face just screamed ‘why are you dragging me into this?’

”When we boarded the ship-“

Suddenly Purple was cut off by an alert. What could possibly be so important as to interrupt this? You looked at your tablet to see that an emergency meeting had been triggered.

> **EMERGENCY MEETING** _(called by LIMP7)_

“What is it?” Asked Yellow. “My tablet just died, I can’t check.”

”It’s an emergency meeting.” Cyan explained. “It says Lime called it.”

You had a bad feeling about this, especially since last time there was an emergency meeting, Orange was dead.

As your large group headed to the cafeteria, you heard Purple say something.

”Hey, can I make a request?” She asked. When nobody said anything, she continued. “When we vote at the end of the meeting, please don’t vote for me. I know I might look really sus right now, which is fine, but please let me explain myself to you, in private, before you vote for me.”

Oddly enough, that did not make you feel any better. Not one bit.


	15. [File 14: Complexities]

Upon entering the cafeteria, everyone was confused. Your group of five: you, Yellow, Purple, Cyan, and Green were all the first ones to converge. However, there was nobody to be seen. Lime had called the meeting according to the system, but he was not standing at the table. In fact, from what you could tell, not a single other person was in the room to discuss why it had been called. Next walked in Red, Blue, and Brown. Pink trailed in behind them. Finally was Black and White, and everyone gathered around the table. 

“Who called the meeting?” Asked Black, clearly confused. “The alert said Lime but he isn’t even here yet.”

”Must be another glitch in the system.” White sighed. “Ok, well sorry about that you all, I guess you can just...”

”Do you hear something?” Cyan asked the group.

She got a couple confused looks as people shook their heads. 

“Anyway, as I was saying, we can just go back to our tasks if nobody has anything to say. ”

Your attention flickered from White over to Cyan, who was now looking under the table. She glanced under, then quickly popped her head back up. 

“Hey um... guys?” She said in a soft tone. 

“Cyan _please_ stop interrupting.”

”I know, I know, and I’m sorry, but I think I know who pressed the button.”

”Who?” Asked Black. 

She took in a deep breath and looked down. 

“Lime’s son is hiding under the table, and I think he’s crying.”

A collective wave of realization swept over the group. Lime’s son hit the button. His son was hiding under the table, crying. And Lime was missing. 

Cyan got out of her seat and crawled down underneath the table herself to try to talk to the kid.

Everyone else spoke in hushed tones.

”Do.. do you think Lime is... you know?” Yellow anxiously wondered aloud. 

“Let’s not jump to any conclusions.” Black stated. “We know from experience that his son loves to play with things he shouldn’t.”

Everyone tried to remain hopeful, but the reality was grim. The group sat in silence until Cyan finally emerged, a sniffling little Lime in her arms. “Can you tell them what you started to tell me?” She asked the kid, as he still held himself close to her. He nuzzled his helmet close to her and looked away for a moment before muttering an ‘mhm.’

”It’s ok. Take your time.” Black encouraged the little boy from across the table. “Why did you press the button?”

”My dad told me if anything ever got really scary, that I needed to run to the big room, climb up to the table, and press the button. He wanted to make extra sure that I would do that, so I promised him. When we were together in the plant room, he let me play with his tablet because he didn’t have mine anymore. He finished his job and we were gonna go get food, but someone stopped us. Dad tried to say hi to the person, but they didn’t say hi back.” 

The child stopped for a moment, as if remembering the incident. 

“Do you know what color the person was wearing?” White asked. 

Little Lime shook his head. “My dad stayed in front of me the whole time. He turned around and started running and told me to run too. He wasn’t very fast, he stopped running and fell over. I told him to get up, but he said to keep running and he would find me later. Like hide and seek. So I kept running and tried to find him. I asked Captain Black if she saw him, but she didn’t hear me.”

”Black, did he ask you about Lime?” Purple asked. 

“I don’t remember.” She answered. “The only person I was with really was White, except for when we were all in reactor.”

”I never saw him.” White shrugged.

“After that I looked for a long time, but I couldn’t find him. I didn’t hide anymore because I wanted him to find me. I looked everywhere and I started to get really scared, so I pushed the button like he told me to. All the other people are here, but Dad didn’t come.”

”Do you remember anything about the person your dad talked to? Anything at all?” Pink urged.

”No.” 

“Do you know if you asked Black about your dad before or after the alarm went off?” Pink asked again. “It was after, right?”

”Um...” Little lime seemed a bit overwhelmed. 

“Geez, Pink, What are all the questions for?” Asked Purple. “You’re scaring him!”

”I’m just trying to set up the timeline so you could all see it wasn’t me! I was nowhere near the right side before the reactor went off! I was doing gas cans with Brown.”

Brown nodded to confirm. 

“Woah, Pink, why are you being so defensive? Nobody’s accusing you of anything.” White questioned.

”Nobody? Why don’t you ask Gray over there why they were apparently investigating me then?”

”Wait, what?” Asked Black. “I didn’t know about this. Gray you shouldn’t be investigating a murder by yourself. You’re not qualified and it’s dangerous to be doing something like that alone.”

”Oh but they’re not alone!” Pink added. “Yellow’s in on it, and Purple and her little Cyan buddy are suspicious of me too.”

”Wait, you’re telling me four different people are apparently investigating you for murder? Without a single one bringing this up to us?” White confirmed. “That sounds a bit far-fetched.”

“It’s true.” Green spoke. “I heard them all talking about it in medbay. I was focused on my task, but I heard them talking about the ventilation system.”

You had forgotten that Green was in there as well. 

”The ventilation system?” Asked Black, confused.

”Yeah. They were talking about people shimmying through the vents or something to get from room to room. Seemed crazy at first, but I dunno it could be possible.”

”But the vents are small. Most of our crew wouldn’t even fit inside one, nevertheless be able to move around.” Black reasoned. 

“Keyword being most.” Purple snarled. “Pink, on the other hand is very lean and could probably make it work. Aren’t you double-jointed or something? It was in your file.”

”How the...” Pink stopped themself upon glancing at the child in the room. “How did you get access to my medical files? Those are classified!”

Black looked over to Purple. “How did you see their files? That violates several privacy regulations.”

Purple rolled their eyes. “I didn’t! I was just getting them to confirm that they could fit inside!”

Pink sighed. “Yes, ok, I could probably fit inside if I wanted to. Technically i’m hyperflexible, not double-jointed, but whatever. Is that what you wanted to hear? Let’s talk more about why you’re trying to get all this fake evidence on me. What did I do?”

”The vent in medbay connects to the one in electrical. You were in medbay when...” Purple stopped and glanced at Brown, who had not said anything since Orange’s death. “Well, you know.”

”How do you know that?” Pink yelled, exhasperated. 

“It doesn’t matter how I know, just that it’s proof! Gray, tell them about the fabric you found!”

Several faces turned towards you, curious as to what Purple had meant.

To be honest, you really did not want to be getting involved at this point. Ideally, you had wanted to present your evidence when things were a little calmer, and when you had the actual piece of fabric with you. Although, you supposed you had no choice now. Someone else was dead, and this piece of evidence could literally be what closes the case on Pink. As much as you hesitated to pin this on someone, the evidence that it was Pink was considerable. And, if you were right, you could stop them from killing anyone else. Brown had lost someone close to her, and Lime’s poor son had been orphaned in space. 

With that, you clenched your fist, determined to avenge your fallen crewmates. 

“I found a piece of fabric in the vent. I heard Purple talking about the vents, and Yellow and I went to look ourselves. I unscrewed the top to the vent and looked inside to see if there was anything weird, and I noticed a piece of fabric caught on the side of the vent inside.”

”Why is this important?” Asked White. “It could be from a cleaning rag or something.”

”Well, it was kinda dark so it was hard to see, but I was pretty sure the piece was a shade of pink.”

”You think it was from Pink’s suit?” Confirmed Black.

”That’s a possibility.” You suggested. 

“Do you have the piece of fabric you found, or is it still in the vent?”

Ah. This you were not looking forward to explaining. 

“I had it in my hand, but I think I dropped it when P-“ You stopped yourself as you almost said you thought you dropped it when Purple slammed you into the wall. As much as you felt like that needed to be addressed, you wanted to hear what Purple had to say for herself. If you mentioned that without all of the context, suspicions would shift to her. But right now, you wanted to focus on Pink. “-when I passed out. I did not think of going to find it until after the reactor went off, but by then it was nowhere to be seen. I did get a picture though.”

You pulled out your tablet to show the picture, and brought it up. The picture was really dark, and even with the flash of the camera light, it was impossible to really see anything in the picture.

”I can’t really see.” White stated. “There’s something coming from the side that looks like a piece, but it’s just a silhouette.”

”Yeah.” You confirmed cautiously. “It didnt show up well in the picture. I didn’t think to retake it as I was going to grab the piece itself, but you know.” 

“Well, if someone did manage to puncture their suit, it would have been both in their best interest and required to report it so that way we can get it fixed as soon as possible. It would be dangerous to be waking around with a hole in your suit.” Black reasoned. 

“Maybe we should have Pink stand up so we can see their suit?” White suggested.

“They probably would have fixed it by now.” reasoned Green. “You can try, but I don’t think we will find anything.”

Pink was getting very irritated at this point. “Do y’all seriously think that I would do any of that? Listen to yourselves! You all sound insane.” At this point, they looked ready to slap someone, and everyone could sense the ridiculous amount of tension in the room. Even Little Lime was scared of Pink, curling up into a little ball in Cyan’s lap.

”Ok, let’s take a break on Pink for a second so they can pull themself together.” Black sensed the tension.

”I have a question.” Red spoke as he itched his arm awkwardly. “Was the reactor thing an actual malfunction? Because you said the tablet was causing the sabotages, and you took it for safekeeping.”

”I am actually not sure.” Black answered. “From what we know, its impossible to tell the difference between a sabotage and an actual malfunction. I’ll check and make sure Silver’s tablet has not been messed with.”

“Speaking of the reactor malfunction, where did everyone go after?” Asked White. “We need to place everyone for the...” He glanced at the child. “Incident.” 

“Well there were lots of us in Medbay.” Yellow explained. 

“Yeah.” You agreed. “It was me, Yellow, Purple, Cyan, Green, and Pink.”

”So Pink was with you all the whole time? Wouldn’t that clear them then?” White seemed confused. 

“No, they weren’t actually.” Green answered. “Pink and Gray got into an argument about their investigation when I think it was Yellow mentioned it.” He paused for a second. “Yellow’s secretly a bad*** by the way.”

Yellow looked away from the table; embarrassed, but hiding a smile.

“So Pink left the room, about how long before the meeting was called?” Continued Black

”It was a while. The conspiracy quartet over there had enough time to discuss their ideas. So yeah, totally enough time for Pink to do the deed.”

”Pink, do you have a defense?” Asked Black.

”How many times do I have to tell you? It had to have happened before the reactor broke! That’s when the kid had to have asked Black. She didn’t hear him because she was busy dealing with the reactor!”

You had seen Little Lime running around during reactor, but you could not remember if you had seen his dad.

”Does anyone remember seeing Lime at reactor?” Asked Black.

Nobody was sure. To be fair, it had been a crisis, and you had just woken up from your Purple-induced unconsciousness. 

“You all are ******* idiots.” Pink sighed. 

“Hey! Language!” Yellow said, motioning to the child. 

“Oh sure, like that’s the most important thing right now.” 

“Ok, everyone settle down.” Black stated. “You know what our policy is, we’ll take a vote to see who we think the guilty party is, and then act accordingly.”

”Act accordingly?” Pink used their fingers as quotations in the air. “What the... What is that supposed to mean?”

“Why would you be so concerned about what that means..” asked Purple “unless you knew you were guilty?”

”Actually I know I’m not guilty, which is exactly why I’m asking. I know all y’all are planning to vote for me, so I wanna know what y’all are gonna do to me.” 

“Nobody’s gonna ‘do anything’ to anyone.” Sighed Blue. “Just vote.” 

And so you turned to your tablet, eyes darting between Lime’s faded portrait and the small child of the same color softly sobbing in your crewmate’s arms.

This one was for him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Poll 2: [Closed]


	16. [File 15: Consensus]

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Poll 2 majority- Pink: (50%)

“You’ve got to be ******* kidding me.” Pink said as they stared at the tablet. “The only two who didn’t vote for me were Cyan and Yellow.”

”Actually” Yellow spoke softly. “I would have voted for you too, but my tablet died.”

”So literally everyone except Cyan.” Pink was very frustrated. “And, let me guess, the kid pressed the skip button for you or something.”

She just shook her head.

”Cyan always skips.” Purple explained.

”Always? We’ve only voted one other time.” Questioned Blue. 

“I skipped then too.” She said.

”Why does it matter anyway?” Asked Red. “Pink got the most votes, now let’s lock them in a room or something.”

”Lock them in a room? Dude, they can crawl through vents like some sort of superhuman or something. I dunno about you, but I don’t want them anywhere near me.” Green exclaimed. 

“Well what are we supposed to do then?” 

“I dunno! But something where they can’t hurt us anymore. I don’t know about you, Red, but I don’t have a death wish!”

Pink looked even more exasperated. “So not only do you vote for me, but you have no idea what to do after you vote for me? What was the point of the vote then?”

”Well we had been planning to lock you in a room until we returned back to Earth, but we have a couple problems. One being, we have no contact with Earth whatsoever.” You saw Red tense out of the corner of your eye. “Even with our training, there’s no way just White and I can correctly calculate a trajectory for an emergency return to Earth. Also, there’s the issue of your ability to somehow crawl through vents.” Black explained.

”I can’t crawl through the ******* vents I don’t know why everyone keeps saying that!”

“Can we just lock them in a room without a vent?” You suggested, earning a glare from Pink. “Maybe one of the bedrooms?”

”All the bedrooms have vents in them.” Black sighed. “Only other rooms I could think of that are don’t have vents are are oxygen and communications. Neither of them have doors we can lock though. Maybe the storage room?”

”Wait” Asked Yellow with a voice of concern. “The bedrooms have vents in them?”

”Yeah. Underneath the beds.” Black confirmed. 

Oh. You had not thought to check there, considering you could not move your beds from where they were due to them being attached to the wall. 

Yellow glanced at you with a ‘we need to find a way to cover the vent’ look. You nodded, agreeing. 

“Well we need to be able to access storage regularly, so we can’t have them in there.” White stated.

”What do we do then?” Asked Black, more to White than anyone else.

Everyone started talking over eachother. It was chaos. Some good points were made though, what were you supposed to do in this situation. There was no protocol for this. You had not been taught what to do in case of a space murder, and neither had anyone else. Even the commanders were clueless as to what to do. But everything fell silent when Brown spoke for the first time since she found out Orange was dead.

She spoke with such dark intensity that a shiver went down everyone’s spines that made their hair stand on end. It was the tone you could only ever hear from someone bent on getting revenge for their beloved.

”Throw that ************ out of the airlock.”

And in that moment you could see a change in everyone’s faces. As if everyone finally understood the gravity of the situation. Why? Because a better portion of the crew knew that logically, that might be their only option. The only way to make sure that everyone was safe, was to send the murderer out into the cold heart of space. And with an almost unanimous decision, there was little doubt that you had gotten the right person. Still, there was that little piece of doubt, that anxiety associated with this. It wasn’t just exile, you were sentencing them to death, and you were not sure you were ok with that. 

Pink’s face changed from one of anger to panic. It was as if everyone had made the decision without saying a word, and they recognized that too. 

The majority seemed in favor, although in favor may not be the best way to describe it. Nobody seemed excited about the prospect of bringing down justice in such an irreversible manner, but for the most part you could see people coming to the conclusion that desperate times called for desperate measures. 

Purple, Red, and Green did not offer any objections. Of course, none of them were looking forward to it by any means, but none of them spoke out against it specifically. 

Yet a few seemed particularly uneasy. 

Yellow, for one, seemed to be worried about the future. She recognized the need for this now, but she was worried that somewhere down the line it would be her getting thrown out. Green tried to reassure her that this would not be happening again, but still there was that little bit of doubt. Still, despite her anxiety on the matter, Yellow did not object. 

Blue, however, did object. “This is insane.” He stated. “We don’t even know for sure it was Pink, what if we’re wrong? I voted to accuse Pink, not to sentence them to death.” 

He had a good point.

The last one to object was Cyan. “No.” She began. “There’s got to be something else. Some other way. We can’t do this, it’s wrong.”

”Cyan, please-“ Purple tried to calm down her friend. “You know we have no choice.”

”There’s always another choice!” You watched as tears formed in her eyes. “Purple, you know me. This goes against all my morals. I don’t care what the situation is, I can’t agree to this. I’m sorry. What gives us the right to choose who lives and who dies?” 

“What gave Pink the right to choose that for Lime? For Orange?” Brown, who was also crying at this point asked. “Would you rather this continue and have them kill someone else? How would your moralsfeel then, knowing you were responsible for another death? What if it was Purple?”

Cyan looked away, and attempted to compose herself, trying not to disturb Little Lime who was now asleep in her lap.

”I lost Orange. Pink killed her. Pink murdered her before I ever got to share my feelings, and now I have to go through my life knowing Orange died before I ever got to tell her I loved her.”

This statement excited an emotional response from several, for some reason Red especially. You had never pegged him for the emotional type. 

”She knew.” Cyan said softly, trying to comfort Brown.

Brown’s speech hilted for a moment as she choked out a sob, but then returned to her point.

”You know who else lost someone? That little boy in your arms. Someday someone is going to have to sit down and tell him that his dad is dead and he’s alone, all because Pink for whatever twisted reason killed him.”

Cyan did not say anything afterwords, and instead stood up with the child in her arms, and left for her room. It was probably best this way, so nobody even tried to stop her.

It was awkwardly silent for a while. Even Pink, who had been fighting for their life, seemed to have ran out of things to say. 

“Pink _is_ our doctor.” Red mentioned. “Shooting them into space might not be the best idea, what if one of us gets hurt? I could inexplicably pass out for a few days again.”

”I don’t care if they’re a world-renowned neurosurgeon. First rule of being a doctor is do no harm, and they’ve killed two people. Who’s to say they’d even treat us?” Green retorted.

You had no idea what to do here. As much as you had been sure it was Pink, throwing them out of the airlock? That was irreversible.

”White and I need to discuss this before we can consider-” Black’s face was emotionless as she spoke. 

“What is there to discuss?” Brown spoke again. “They killed Orange and Lime.”

”As much as I don’t want to do this,” started Purple. “It’s too dangerous to keep them on board.”

Black sighed and worriedly looked back and forth between the group in front of her and White. It was obvious that Pink could tell that they were in danger now, as they started to panic. 

“Wait! Come on, we trained together! You know me! Please, I’ll do anything!” You watched as tears splashed against the visor of their helmet, and you could see their face contorted in fear. “I don’t want to die.”

Nearly everyone looked away from Pink. Even if they had killed two people, it was hard not to feel pity for someone who was begging for their life. Even those who were sure this was the right thing to do could not bring themselves to face Pink. The only person who remained completely stoic was Brown, staring Pink down with a look that could have killed them on the spot. If you looked closely though, you could see tears in her eyes.

“Please! I’m your doctor! I’m your crewmate, I’m a person! You can’t do this to me! I didn’t do anything wrong.” They were obviously sobbing at this point, and it was hard to watch. 

“If we don’t throw them out, they’ll just kill again.” Brown reminded everyone. 

“You don’t have to do this! Lock me up, do something, just please don’t kill me.” 

It was at this point that Black and White asked everyone else to leave the room. There was a sense of finality to it, as if the decision had been made. Everyone knew that they would not be seeing Pink again. The majority of people, you included, were eager to leave. The exception being Brown, who was obviously knee-deep in the ‘anger’ stage of grief. 

As you left the room, you heard Pink’s desperate pleas echo through the air. There was a loud clatter that sounded like breaking glass, and more yelling, until it stopped rather abruptly. This was because your in-suit radios had gotten out of range, which was proabably for the best. You were not sure you would be able to bear hearing that any longer. Had you made the right decision? There was no way to know, and that worried you.

The mood was somber, and nobody felt like talking or joking. It was hard to even find enough motivation to complete any more tasks. You had entirely forgotten about what Purple had mentioned before the meeting was called until you received a message.

> **GROUP MESSAGE:** _crew/mission2.018/GRAP0, YELP6, CYAP9, PURP11_

* * *

**PURPLE:** i know now is a bad time

 **PURPLE:** but I wanted to say that I still want to explain myself before anything else happens

 **PURPLE:** so I dont look sus

 **PURPLE:** grey and yellow come to our room and we’ll explain

* * *

You were not really sure if you were up for it, and you could tell that nobody else was either, but if this was going to explain Purple’s erratic behavior, you kind of had to follow through. You told Yellow about the message, and after a quick stop off at your room so Yellow could go plug in her tablet, the two of you headed next door to Purple and Cyan’s room.

You knocked on the door softly and Purple let the two of you in. Their room was identical to yours, just flipped the opposite way- similar to how the rooms had been set up on MIRA HQ. Cyan was also there, sitting on the bed with little Lime still hugging her. She still seemed upset but less so than earlier.

”So I said I owe you all an explanation.” Purple started, getting your attention. 

The three of you sat down, Purple at a small desk and you and Yellow on the floor.

”I attempted to explain this earlier, but I now realize that trying to explain myself while pinning you up against a wall because I thought you were trying to kill me is not very effective. Then there was the meeting that just happened and yeah. Long story short my explanation is very overdue, thank you for not voting for me... or saying what happened there. Even with the explanation it sounds kinda sus.”

The two of you nodded. 

“So how did you know about the vents in the first place?” You asked, finally wanting to get this answer.

She looked at Cyan, who looked rather defeated at this point and just nodded. She had probably realized she wouldn’t be able to keep whatever secret they were hiding anymore.

”We originally made a pact not to tell anyone because it might make us a target, which is why we have been so secretive. To be honest, I don’t really trust anyone here, and I think that’s proven to be a good stance to take.”

You had to admit that she was right on that.

”But as for how I know about the vents? It’s kind of complicated. See, this, well it’s isn’t the first time Cyan and I have been on a ship like this. Exactly like this, actually. And last mission we were on, it was the same thing. Hiding somewhere in the crew were two impostors. They ended up killing off five of our crew members, until we finally threw them out into space.”

”So this has happened before?” Asked Yellow.

”You don’t know the half of it.” Cyan whispered.

”Wait, is MIRA doing this on purpose? Are they knowingly sending out missions with murderers?” You asked, concerned.

”I’m not sure to be honest.” Purple looked down. “But something was definitely up with the last crew. Most missions they send from 7-10 people. 5 returning is weird. Now that I think about it, we have more people then usual. That’s kind of odd.” 

Cyan spoke. “We’re all pretty sure Silver was an impostor after finding that tablet of his, so this wasn’t an isolated incident.”

“So the impostors there were using the vents?” You concluded. “How could they fit in there?”

”Theres the crazy part.” Started Purple. “The impostors are actually aliens.” 

“Aliens? Like creatures from another planet?” Yellow asked.

”Yes. Specifically shape-shifters. We think at some point they kill off the original crew members and take their places. But because they’re shape-shifters, they can fit inside the vents.”

“Wait so, Pink wasn’t the real Pink?” You asked, wanting to feel a bit better about them being ejected from the ship.

”We can’t say for sure, but that seems plausible.” 

“Why haven’t you told anyone?” Yellow questioned.

“Because, if the impostor knew we had this information, they’d probably kill us. They wouldn’t exactly want us going around explaining what they can do.” 

“Why didn’t you tell Black or White then?” 

“Because to be honest, I don’t trust them. I don’t even really trust you all, but I figured I owed you an explanation after I slammed Gray into the wall. Again I really didn’t mean to knock you out, I just thought you had been in the vents and didn’t want to die.”

”Is there anything else the impostors can do?” You asked. “Besides use the vents and apparently cause emergencies.” 

“It’s not what they can do, it’s what they can’t.” Purple stated rather cryptically. “Impostors don’t complete tasks. They don’t care about the well-being of the ship, why would you do tasks if you were trying to take it down? No, they pretend to do tasks. Sometimes though, if you’re really careful, you can catch them not doing certain tasks, like shooting asteroids or turning on the shields.”

”They also can’t do the medbay scan.” Cyan added. 

“That makes sense.” Yellow agreed. “If you were a shapeshifting alien the medical scan would find evidence of that.”

Purple nodded.

”Well I guess that means I can prove I’m safe then.” You surmised. “I did the scan first thing when we got to MIRA HQ.”

”I want to believe you, I do.” Said Purple. “But the only person that saw you scan is Orange. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t necessarily think it’s you, but that evidence isn’t worth anything if there’s nobody to clear you.” 

“I understand.” You sighed. 

“But why?” Asked Yellow. “Why would they do this?”

”That I have no idea.” Purple seemed defeated. “Nobody knows.” 

You looked over to the little boy, still only facing the wall behind him over Cyan’s shoulder. “It’s horrible. You know, what happened to Orange and Lime.”

You heard a soft mumble from the kid. 

“What was that?” Asked Cyan. 

“I know.” Little Lime repeated himself. “I know Dad’s dead. You don’t wanna tell me cause I’m little, but I know he’s not coming back.”

Everyone was a bit caught off guard by this. 

“Cyan did you say something to him?” Asked Purple.

”No! I couldn’t do that!” 

“It’s ok.” The kid said. “I know by myself.” 

The four of you were silent, not sure how to respond. So you say there in silence for a moment, processing everything that had happened in such a short period of time. So much tragedy had already struck, Orange, Lime, and now you assumed Pink were all dead. Although from what Purple had said, it was entirely possible Pink could have been dead from the beginning. Still, you could not help but wonder if your crew had done the right thing.


	17. [File 16: Cornered]

After your discussion with Purple, the two of you grabbed some food from the cafeteria, and then made your way back to your quarters. It had been what seemed to be the longest day imaginable, with several horrifying twists that ended in two deaths. All you could do was hope that your hunch to vote out Pink was correct. You had seen a piece of their suit in the vent, right? Sure the camera has not picked up the color due to how dark it was, but you had been so sure it was Pink. 

You still had to be on guard though. Even if you had gotten Pink right, Purple said that in the past there were two impostors in the crew. Two aliens. You shuddered at the thought. If that was true, and to be honest that was a big if, that would mean that first contact had not only been hidden from the general public, but that these aliens were not friendly. From everything you had heard, you were doubting MIRA’s intentions for this mission. What were they up to? 

Of course, there was also the possibility that Purple’s explanation was an elaborate ruse. Yet, you had a hard time believing that was the case. Something about the explanation, or at least some portions of her words, seemed legitimate. You had felt something was off from the beginning, and there was this nagging feeling you could not explain that seemed as if she was right. At least about the presence of some sort of exraterrestrial being that was killing off your crewmates and taking their places or something like that. Wow, it seemed impostor really was a fitting term.

Regardless, all this talk about aliens and everything reminded you of the fact that there was apparently a vent in your room. Somehow you had missed it when searching earlier, and now you could see why. It was directly under the two beds, both of which were stacked above eachother and recessed into the wall. It was impossible to see unless you got down on your hands and knees and crawled under. The space underneath the bottom bed was relatively small, so you could not actually fit under it, but an alien? Maybe. 

Yellow saw what you were doing and seemed to follow a similar pattern of thinking. 

“Maybe we could weigh it down?” She asked, looking at the opening. “Prevent someone from coming through it?”

”It’s worth a shot.”

You shrugged and grabbed a stack of books from the small desk in the room. The two of you bent down and covered the vent with the books. To be honest you doubted it would make much difference weight wise, but if you could stack the books up all the way so they reached the bottom of the bunk, the vent would be very difficult to open from the underside. You really did not feel much better, but at least it was something. Maybe at some point you could get a drill and screw it down even more or something. 

After your fiddling around with the vent, you and Yellow hopped into your beds and attempted the process of heading to sleep. Clearly it was not going to happen anytime soon, but it was worth a shot to at least lie down. As much as you wanted to browse the Internet, you had an outstanding notification from earlier in the day that said your tablet was overdue for an update. So, as you waited for it to update, you stared at the ceiling. 

“Do you think we’re going to make it?” Asked Yellow. 

“What do you mean?” You replied, looking at the bed above you where Yellow resided. 

“I dunno, just like, will we make it to where we’re going? And if we do, will we even get there alive?”

You were silent for a moment. 

“Honestly, I’m not sure.” You sighed. “I want to be hopeful but, three people are dead, and we apparently can’t turn back to Earth.”

”I wish Black and White would tell us more. Why can’t they contact anyone on Earth?”

”Maybe whoever killed those two sabotaged the communications to Earth.” Was your speculation. 

“Right. Maybe like with Silver’s tablet or something.” Yellow was silent for a moment. “Do you really believe in what Purple said? About the aliens?”

”It would explain a lot of things.” You thought aloud. “But it does seem pretty far-fetched. I’m not sure which is more likely.”

”I almost hope it’s aliens. I feel like it would be so much worse if it was one of us.” 

“Yeah. You would have to be a pretty horrible human being to do something like that.”

Yellow hummed in agreement.

You could tell she was worried. She had been for a while, always sleeping with the lights on and double checking the door was locked. The fact that the person who had been sleeping in the room with you had a device telling him to kill everyone had really gotten to her, and you too if you were being honest. He was long gone now, and you were on a completely different ship, but still something inside you worried that in the middle of the night, he would pop out of the vent and murder you both.

As your mind was cycling through the possible doom and danger you could be in, you heard Yellow mutter something. 

“Hm?” You looked up at her. “What’s up?”

”Oh I just saw the alert pop up.”

”Oh, what was it for? My tablet’s updating right now.” You assumed that it was not an urgent meltdown or something because there was no alarm or flashing lights. Maybe it was yet another meeting? Your heart dropped to your stomach upon wondering if another person died.

”Oh yeah, I updated mine earlier. Apparently the lights are broken?” She seemed confused, but rightfully so. “But the lights are still on in here.” 

“Weird.” You commented. “Did it say where exactly?”

”No. the chat is discussing it though. Apparently someone else is in their room and their lights didn’t go out either.”

”So did it not affect the crew quarters?” 

“I guess not. I mean we could go check.” She suggested. 

You sighed. It had already been a long day and now this? “Is there at least someone going to fix it?”

“Yeah, there are several others on the way.” She explained. “At least Black and White, and I know a few others are going.”

You knew you were going to end up regretting this. “Fine, I guess. We can go check the other rooms. How are we going to get in though?”

”Emergency override.” She stated. “There’s a way to unlock all the bedroom doors in case of an emergency. I, uh, found it out while trying to see if there was any way anyone could break into our room besides the vent.” Yellow rubbed the back of her neck, embarrassed. 

Huh. It seemed as if her paranoia was surprisingly useful. Of course, the idea that someone could still break into your room by using this was unnerving, but that was an issue to deal with another time. 

Reluctantly you agreed and got out of bed. You didn’t bother to put on your suit or grab your tablet, which was probably not the smartest idea in retrospect, but your tablet was updating anyway and you would only be a few minutes. Yellow hopped off of the top bunk after you, and the two of you exited the room. 

The hallway seemed light enough as well, so you assumed that the malfunction was confined to the main work areas of the ship. Still, you had bothered to get up and this seemed to be calming Yellow’s nerves some, so you agreed to check the rooms with her. She activated the emergency override on the doors, and the two of you split off in different directions. That was nervewracking as well, but everyone had been headed to examine the lights and you were within yelling distance of eachother. Also, despite your inner doubts, there was a chance you had gotten Pink right. 

Yellow headed to one side of your room to check Purple and Cyan’s room while you headed to the other side. Your other neighbors were Green and Blue apparently, at least according to the plaque on the door. You had never bothered to check, honestly. It did not really matter though, as you were just popping in to see if their light was on. 

You felt weird going in to their room without permission, especially since the only way you got in was by abusing the emergency safeguards. Unfortunately, in order to really see into the room, you had to go inside. 

Slowly you stepped through the doorway, just planning to check the lights and leave. From what you could tell the lights did still appear to be on, so your hypothesis about the outage not affecting the crew quarters must have been correct. 

With one quick glance around the room, you almost laughed for a moment at the distinction. Blue’s bed was made and his things were stored neatly. The clothes must have been put away in the wardrobe as you did not see any piles of blue fabric laying around. and what you assumed were his books were stacked. Green’s things on the other hand were a mess. His bed was not made, his few personal belongings were all over the room, and everywhere you looked were piles of green clothing. 

It was easy to see why Red was eager to change rooms. Regardless, you avoided judgement. After all, the cleanliness of a room does not determine someone’s worth. Sure your room was decent now, but it was totally possible that it would get messy later on. After all, you were supposed to be here a while. Keyword: supposed to.

Anyway, you had checked to see if the light was on, and had time to do a nosy glance around the room, so it was probably time to head out and go to the next room. You turned around to exit the room, when suddenly you heard a hissing noise and the doors slammed shut in front of you. Well this was not good. You tried to figure out what happened but your familiarity with this emergency override was limited, so it was possible that it closed after a while. There was also the worry that this was another sabotage. The lights had possibly been messed with so the doors were not out of the question to be next.

A thought crossed your mind. Was this a trap? Was somebody setting up something for a murder? You gulped, worried for the safety of your crewmates, and yourself. What if someone came in through the vent? Or, if they were not targeting you, what about Yellow. Was she stuck in a room too?

You went to grab your tablet to message your crewmates, but remembered that you had left it in the room while it was updating. Perhaps you could bang against the door and ask for help. Yet, that did not seem like the best idea. First of all, you were not sure if the sound would even make it though the thick door, and second of all you did not want to make yourself a target for anyone who was prowling through the hallways.

You stood there for a while, still waiting for the door to open. It was hard to tell how long you had been waiting, but as time ticked by you got more worried. Every noise you heard made you jump. How long exactly were you going to be stuck in there? You plopped down on the floor of the room, in a corner that had the least amount of green clothes on the floor. There was not much choice as the room was very small and the clothes were all over the ground, but you found a spot just big enough to sit down. This was going to be a long night.

*******

You had not realized you had drifted off to sleep until you opened your eyes. When you did so, you ended up being met with a white space helmet hovering above your face. Why was White in your room? It took you a minute to remember that this was in fact not your room and actually was the one Green and Blue had been sharing. Yeah, that was probably why you were receiving a very weird look from the second-in-command. 

This was not going to be fun to explain. 

“Hey.” You began awkwardly. “So the thing is-“

Before you could even get your sentence out, you were interrupted by a terrified scream from White that you could hear through his helmet.

“WHAT THE ****?”


	18. [File 17: Confounded]

Frantically, you looked around, desperate to find the source of White’s shock. However, nothing in particular seemed out of the ordinary. Yet, White immediately jumped back from you. 

You were scared. Had something happened? Was there someone here who was going to attack you? 

With adrenaline pumping, you quickly hopped to your feet and prepared to run. However, this somehow seemed to make things worse, as White screamed again and ran towards the door. You could tell he was anxiously saying something on the suit radio, but you could not hear exactly what he was talking about. 

Slowly you exited the room as well, greeted by several faces which were all sharing the same look of confused anxiety. Besides White, standing at the door were also Black and Green. Green also screamed upon your arrival and even the stoic Black seemed startled. They were speaking to eachother, but you still had no idea what they were supposed to be saying. It was obvious that you were the subject of the conversation, but you still jumped when Black put her hand on your shoulder and seemed to ask you something. You motioned to your ears, trying to explain that you could not hear what they were saying. 

She said something again, and you shook your head, still unable to hear. Then she pointed to your room, and she realized she was telling you to go get your suit and tablet so you could communicate. Quickly, you rushed into your room to change. You noticed as you changed your shirt that there was actually a scrape on your arm that had torn through the fabric. When had that happened? Thankfully, it did not seem bad enough where it needed any attention, but you could tell that it had been bleeding. Now, however, was not the time to question what you had assumed was your clumsiness. 

As you pulled on your helmet and activated the communicator, you were met with a frantic flurry of the voices from outside your door. It was impossible to tell precisely what anyone was saying, so you tried to get their attention.

”What’s going on?” You asked, having to repeat yourself a few times to get anyone to listen.

”Oh good, you’re back. I’m going to call a meeting, explain to everyone at the same time.” Said Black.

”What happened? Is everyone alright?”

”Again, I’ll explain at the meeting.”

”It’s gonna be a weird one” you heard Green mutter. 

> **EMERGENCY MEETING** _(called by BLAP1)_

Everyone made their way to the cafeteria once again. To be honest, you were starting to dread these meetings. It was always bad news, and lately that bad news was someone being dead. You really hoped that was not the case this time, but from the skittish way everyone had been acting? Entirely possible. Your heart dropped when you began to wonder who died. Could it have been Yellow? Is that why everyone was acting so skittish around you? No, you could not think that way. She had become a close friend of yours on the ship and losing her would be devastating. You would just hope that everyone was ok, and that maybe you were just getting in trouble for being in someone else’s room. Getting yelled at would not be ideal, but it would be exponentionally better than someone else dying. 

Everyone else was already there when you entered. You could hear the commotion from those standing, or in Brown’s case sitting, around the table. You were glad to see that everyone was still alive, well, everyone who was alive last you saw them. As soon as your group of four walked in, everyone fell silent.

”I knew Green was a ******* idiot.” muttered Blue.

Cyan and Purple turned to look at eachother, while Brown looked back and forth between the group at the table and the group you were standing in. Red stared straight forward at you four, tilting his head in confusion. Yellow sprung out of her seat and ran towards you at breakneck speed. Before you could even process what had happened, you were engulfed in a hug.

”I’m sorry so so sorry we shouldn’t have split up and I didn’t know the doors would close and when I heard you were-“

You were not exactly sure what Yellow was saying, but you attempted to comfort her as the two of you walked to the table together. It seems she had been worried about you. Maybe she had tried to get you out of the room but the doors were stuck?

When everyone approached the table, you were prepared to ask why everyone was so jittery. But before there was a break in the conversation for you to ask, you got a pretty good hint.

First, Black had started. “So, I suppose we should talk about the elephant in the room.”

Then Red muttered. “More like zombie in the room.”

Zombie? Oh no.

Purple elbowed Red in the side, mumbling something about being insensitive.

Surely they were smart enough not to assume...?

”Red.” Black glared at the offender. “That’s inappropriate, this is serious. Personally I, and many of your other crewmates are relieved to see Gray-“

”Wait.” You stated. “Did you all think I was-“

”-dead. Yes. We thought you were dead. Thus the scream.” Finished White. 

“You thought I was dead?” You questioned, confused and to be honest a bit upset. “I fell asleep!”

”I know, I know, and we are very sorry.” Black cringed. “With the loss of Pink as our doctor...”

”You don’t need a doctor to know someone isn’t dead!” 

“Yes, I know.” The captain glared at Green. “Green found you and he told us that you had an injury and he couldn’t find a pulse, and we feared the worst.”

”In my defense I really couldn’t find one!” Green sighed.

”Probably slept through the first-aid course” Red muttered. 

“I mean, maybe a bit, but contrary to popular belief apparently, I’m not stupid!”

In response, Blue reached over to Cyan and grabbed the ‘dum’ sticky note off her helmet, and stuck it onto Green’s. 

“Ok maybe I deserved that.” He muttered. “But none of you all thought to check after me!”

”That’s why we went to your room!” Mentioned White. 

“After the meeting where you told everyone that Gray was dead!” Yelled Green.

You noticed Yellow suddenly look very uncomfortable.

”But when you came to check after me, did you find that Gray had a pulse?” 

”I think the answer is ******* obvious.” White gestured to where you were standing, very much alive. 

White and Green were arguing quite intensely now and Black had to step in to stop them. 

“We obviously all made several mistakes, but there was no harm done. Gray, and everyone else who was alive is alive, and everyone knows that now.”

Yellow said something softly, but nobody was able to hear it. Black asked her to repeat it, but she shook her head. 

Cyan looked over at Yellow and then said to the group quietly. “Yellow almost wasn’t.” 

The group grew silent for a moment. You looked at the others, confused. 

Yellow turned to you. “They almost voted me out. I was the last one with you and... well I didn’t bother to defend myself. I thought I deserved it. I might not have killed you, but I, well at least then, I thought I got you killed.”

You reached over to give her a side hug, patting her on the shoulder. “Even if I had died, it wouldn’t have been your fault.” You tried to reassure her.

“So are we all good then?” Asked Green, taking Cyan’s sticky note off of his head. “Is the meeting over?”

You honestly really hoped so. You just wanted to go lie down and sleep on something that was not Green’s dirty floor. 

“Unfortunately, far from it.” Black brought everyone’s attention back to the table. “We have some procedural things to discuss, as well as what happened to Brown.”

”What happened to Brown?” You asked, eyes flicking over to her. 

“How about you explain what happened, Brown. I didn’t get the full story myself.“ Suggested Black.

”I was attacked.” She explained. “I don’t know who it was, because it was dark, but someone popped out of the vent in my room and came at me with a knife or something. I’m not sure exactly what it was. Anyway, they got my leg pretty good, but I threw the desk chair and my tablet at them before they could do anything else. I know they didn’t get hit, but they got startled and somehow got back into the vent.” 

“So that’s confirmation of two things.” Black started. “One, we were right about someone going through the vents, but we may have been wrong assuming it was Pink.” 

The mood quickly turned sour. 

“So we ejected an innocent person?” Red asked, concern showing in his face for once.

“It’s all my fault.” Brown said softly. “I was sure, I was just so upset about Orange I-“ 

“Its not your fault.” Yellow tried to comfort Brown. 

“If anyone, it was Gray who suggested it was Pink. They said they saw the fabric in the vent.” Green mentioned. 

Uncomfortably, you looked down. You had initially brought the suspicion on Pink, and that suspicion had led to them being voted out. You had voted for them, as well as many others, but you had contributed to the vote. Was this your fault? Did you make a bad call? But you had been so sure it was Pink...

”No.” Purple brought the conversation to a halt. “I think we were right.” 

“How?” Asked Brown. “Someone attacked me!”

”But they did use the vents.” Purple stated. “Look, this is going to sound insane, but I don’t think Pink was working alone.”

”What makes you say that?” Asked Black, a look on her face that was both anxious and relieved at the same time. 

“Well, think about it like this.” She began. “Clearly, this is premeditated. There’s a strategy behind this, it wasn’t a crime of passion. So, if someone was going to infiltrate a space mission to kill everyone on board, wouldn’t they bring a buddy? Someone to back them up, an alibi of sorts.”

You thought back to when Purple had mentioned her previous trip like this, where there were in fact two killers on board. It seemed she was trying to guide the conversation in that direction without giving out her information, so you decided to help her.

”I mean, that makes sense.” You suggested. “It might explain how we still are having technical sabotages even though Black has Silver’s tablet.”

”How do we know it’s not Black starting the sabotages though?” Questioned Green. 

Black stared at Green for a moment. “I am the commander of this ship! I went through training for this mission, why would I sabotage it?”

”Well, Pink was maybe a killer, and you went to training with them. Maybe you’re in on it. Maybe White’s in on it too!” Green suggested. 

“MIRA has made some... questionable decisions.” Purple began.

”See, Purple agrees with me.” Green encouraged. 

“What I was going to say” Purple glared back at the perpetually-exhausted astronaut “Is that they have made some questionable decisions, but I don’t think it’s them. The amount of people that would need to stay quiet for that to work is a lot.”

“Well where was everyone when this was all going on?” Asked White. “Maybe we can find who was unaccounted for.”

Purple started. “Well, Cyan, Blue, and I all were fixing the lights together.” 

Blue nodded. 

“Me too!” Said Little Lime, excited to let the others know he was helping. 

“Ok. Black and I were headed there too, but we were coming from near Navigation so it took us a bit longer. Green and Red, where were you?” White responded. 

“I was in my room, getting ready for bed.” Red stated. “I remember when Yellow asked about the lights in the rooms in the group chat, I said mine were still on as well. Then I figured everyone else was fixing them, so I went to bed.”

”I was in my room too.” Said Brown. “I had my lights off because I was already asleep, so I didn’t know they were still working in the crew quarters. If I had known I would have tried to turn them on to see who attacked me.”

”Ok. What about you, Green? When did you find Gray?”

”Well, when the lights went out, I was headed back from the cafeteria after grabbing some food. I got a bit lost with it being dark and ended up at the crew quarters instead of electrical. I decided to just go to my room when the lights came back on, and there was Gray. How or why they had gotten in my room I had no idea, but I thought they were dead so I went and called the meeting.”

”By the way.” Black turned to you. “I mentioned this last meeting but you weren’t here Gray. Because of what’s been happening, White and I set up a new alert system on everyone’s tablets that should have been in the recent update. You still need to press the big button to call a meeting, but if you find a dead body somewhere, you can report it right from your tablet. I know it is morbid, but we deemed it necessary.” 

You nodded and let the others continue. 

“And I was checking rooms to see if the lights were on with Gray, like how I explained last time.” Yellow reminded the group. 

“So everyone does seem to be accounted for.” Mentioned Red. 

Green still had something to say, apparently. “What were you and White doing over by Navigation? It was a bit late to be doing tasks.”

”We were looking for...” Black trailed off and gestured at Little Lime. “Y’know. Wanted to see where and how.” 

“Do you think, maybe, since Gray was still alive...?” Cyan wondered aloud. 

Black shook her head. “No. The voting screen is tied into the vitals system, so when the X appears on that screen, it’s final.”

”Why didn’t you bring that up when Green found Gray?” Asked Brown.

”I did, remember? At that point everyone just assumed it was an error with how many issues we’ve had on this ship already.” 

A murmur of recognition came from several of those at the table. 

“I don’t really think we have enough evidence here to vote on anyone.” Cyan mentioned. 

“You always say that.” Red rolled his eyes. “But I do kind of agree.”

”I dunno. I mean Brown was attacked, so there is obviously still an impostor on board.” Purple said. 

“I think it’s Black.” Stated Green. “Maybe White too. They two of them have been together every time something has gone wrong, and the only person who can corroborate their stories is eachother.”

”Well I think it’s Green!” White retorted, before Black could even say anything. “He’s accusing us without any evidence, and not to mention he led us all to believe that Gray was dead, and tried to get Yellow voted off for it!”

”I didn’t mean to! I was just actually sure they were dead. Their arm was cut and everything, it looked like they were in a fight. And Yellow was the last one with them, who was also not bothering to defend herself!”

Yellow seemed conflicted. “Well, Green was taking a long time on his wire task.”

”That’s because I’m colorblind!” He sighed. “I didn’t want to tell you because I didn’t want to get sent back. They asked me if I was colorblind as a test before I came here and I lied. I didn’t want them to prevent me from going.”

”That’s not how it works.” Mentioned Red. “Silver told me that Maroon from the other crew was colorblind.”

”When did you talk to him?” Asked Black. “We were separated most of the time.”

”We weren’t separated right away! Not.. uh.. not during the first day.” Red suddenly seemed nervous. 

Black raised an eyebrow with a we-will-talk-about-this-later look, then turned to Green. “If you’re colorblind, how can you tell some of us apart then?”

”Because everyone wears hats!” He seemed exasperated. “Also voices, movement styles, and body shapes. And the helmets may not be clear, but in certain light you can see faces through them. Do you seriously think i’m lying about this? What’s the big deal about taking a while on tasks anyways?”

”Well, if I knew I was trying to sabotage the ship, I wouldn’t do the maintenance tasks needed to fix it.” Purple stated. 

“That is a fair point.” Said White. 

“Is nobody going to talk about how suspicious _that_ is?” Green gestured at Purple, exasperated. “Purple seems to know a lot about this impostor business to be innocent.”

”She would have killed me if that was the case.” Cyan responded. “We’ve been alone a lot.”

”Exactly why she wouldn’t kill you!” Green was getting frustrated at this point.

“Ok, clearly this isn’t going anywhere useful.” White stated. “Let’s just vote and take it from there.” 

You mulled over your options and selected one, still processing exactly what happened.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Poll 3: [closed]


	19. [File 18: Concentrate]

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Poll 3 majority- [Skip vote]: (58%)

You were confused, to be honest. There were decent arguments for and against nearly everyone, but no solid evidence to pinpoint this attack on anyone. As helpful as it would be to get the impostor, or second impostor apparently, off the ship, nobody had enough evidence, so you chose to skip.

It turns out your vote held a decent amount of weight as it ended up being the deciding vote to skip. Three people had voted for Green, much to his dismay, two for Black, and two to skip. Purple and Blue also received a vote each.

Both Green and Blue seemed to be a bit nervous when they noticed that Black had not been voted out, most likely because Black was the commander and they had accused her of murder. Thankfully, Black did not seem to be one to hold a grudge. Well, perhaps she was one to hold a grudge, but she was not letting it get in the way of her work at this point in time. White however did not seem happy, and you could see the two taking note as to avoid him.

Green had been voted for by White, Yellow, and Brown. White had long since made his reasons known, and Yellow had voted for Green because he had tried to get her voted out at the last meeting. Apparently last time Yellow had not been so eager to defend herself after she thought she got you killed, but now the fire was back in her eyes. She was sweet most of the time, but as you had learned earlier, Yellow could be downright terrifying given the chance. Brown had voted for Green because she reasoned that if they had been wrong on Pink, Green was the most suspicious at the meeting when Orange was killed. 

Black had voted for Purple, which was a bit of a surprise to everyone. She said that Green made a valid point about Purple having a suspicious amount of knowledge regarding the impostor. 

Purple, suprised at Black’s vote on her, took a moment to process before acknowledging her vote for Blue. She said that Blue could have easily slipped away while her and Cyan were fixing the lights as it was dark, and that it was suspicious that you had gotten hurt while in Blue and Green’s room.

You had not bothered to mention the cut on your arm during the meeting, but vaguely remembered it being mentioned that you were hurt. To be honest you were unsure exactly what had happened, and it was bothering you. When and how had that happened? It was possible that you had smacked something in your sleep, you supposed.

“How did you get hurt, Gray?” Brown looked at you with an intense stare. 

“I’m not sure, honestly. Maybe I banged myself in my sleep?”

Her eye contact did not waver. “What kind of injury?”

You were unable to see why it mattered, but you decided to entertain her. “I have a cut on my arm. Probably hit it on something sharp at some point.” 

Brown relaxed a bit. 

“Why do you ask?” You were curious. 

“Well...” She pondered for a minute before deciding to continue. “I threw a chair at whoever attacked me. I didn’t think it hit them, but if you had a mysterious bruise, it could have come from the chair. A cut though? It almost sounds like whoever attacked me tried to get you too. They slashed my leg with a knife.”

”So are you saying Gray attacked you?” Asked Green. “If so I want to change my vote.”

”No, Green.” Sighed Brown. “I’m saying it probably wasn’t them then, and they might have been attacked as well.”

You shuddered, and decided not to think about it. It turns out it may have not been too far-fetched to assume you were dead in there- it seemed like someone tried to kill you as well.

”I mean, it would make sense.” Stated Purple. “I’m pretty sure the vents in the bedrooms must be connected to eachother, since I don’t think they’re connected to any of the other ventilation shafts.”

”Again, Purple, how do you know that?” Asked Green, exasperated. 

Purple tapped on her tablet a few times and pulled up a map of the ship that showed which ventilation shafts were connected to eachother. Sure enough, all of the crew quarters were connected via vents. She gestured to it with a sarcastic flair. 

“So who else was in their room?” Asked Green. “Didn’t Red say he was in his?”

”Come on, Green.” Red sighed. “It was late. I was tired. Besides, do you really think that whoever was in there would admit it? Let’s just give it a rest already.”

Black stopped the conversation and managed to bring everyone’s attention to her. “We’ve already voted, and clearly we are just speculating at this point. To avoid more of this accusing eachother without evidence, I have decided to split up your teams. You will still be bunking with eachother, but you will be doing tasks with a different partner than you have been.”

Everyone groaned. 

“I know, but as captain I feel this is important. This also means that White and I will be separated, which might help to clear us. Because my crew apparently does not trust me, I will allow White to assign the pairs.”

There were scattered mutters from the crew as White typed a few things on his tablet, pairing people up. Both Cyan and Purple seemed very nervous to be separated from eachother, and Yellow was not too keen on being apart from you as well. You tried to reassure her that both of you would be fine, and it only worked marginally. 

After a few short minutes, White announced the new pairs.

”We have me- White and Blue, Black and Yellow, Green and Red, Purple and Brown, and Gray and Cyan.”

Neither Green nor Red looked happy, and both quickly voiced their opinion. 

“Remember when us being roommates didn’t work out?” Reminded Red. “He’s so slow on tasks and late all the time!”

”Look.” Sighed White. “I did my best. I didn’t want to pair anyone who had voted for eachother together.”

”Why not put me with Purple or Cyan then?”

”I also, just in case, put people together that would be more evenly matched in a fight. I don’t want the impostor to be with someone they could easily kill right away.”

”Ok, But I would like to point out that Black would totally crush Yellow.” Mentioned Green.

”Well Black voted for Purple so I couldn’t put them together.” White raised his hands in the air out of frustration.

“This just sounds like you’re trying to set up some fight bracket between us you’ve always been dreaming about or something.” Purple said, only half-joking.

Black glared at White who had suddenly gone very quiet at the mention of a tournament between the crew members. Black seemed to be either regretting letting White choose or being impressed by his proactivity, you were unable to tell. ”We can revisit groups later, just deal with this for now.” She said. 

“Who’s the kid going to go with?” White spoke again.

”I don’t know.” Sighed Black. “Who’s been watching him so far?”

”He’s been staying with us.” Said Purple. “I can take him.”

As Cyan agreed to let Purple care for him for a bit, she ran into a bit of a problem. Little Lime, who had been hugging onto her leg, refused to let go. She had tried to ask him to go with Purple, but he refused. After a few minutes of trying to shake him off of her leg, she gave up and asked if you would be alright with him tagging along. To be honest, you really did not have much of a choice regardless, so you agreed to let the kid stay with you two.

That being settled, everyone took turns grabbing some food and split off in different directions to either do their tasks or nap. After your rough night of sleep, and being unable to tell exactly what time it is, you really wanted to nap, but you were too behind. Because of the recent tragedies, a large portion of people’s tasks had been left incomplete, so everyone was playing catch-up. You pulled up your task list and read over your tasks. You both had tasks in Admin, so that was where you headed first. Cyan had to swipe her card, which was already crossed off on your list from when you went with Yellow earlier, but you still had to fix some wires outside of the room.

“Why didn’t you want to go with Purple?” Cyan asked Little Lime who was still clinging to her. “I’m not really...” She sighed.

“You’re nice, and...” He said, and then mumbled something else neither of you could hear. 

“Hm?” Cyan looked down at the kid. 

He looked down at his feet before looking back up at your crewmate. “When it’s dark, your color looks like my dad’s. I can think I’m hugging him.” 

Neither of you knew how to respond to that, which was evident by the concerned looks you gave eachother. You decided to try to step in and get his mind off his dad. You knelt down to his level and tried to get his attention.

”Well, I remember last time I was with you, you really liked helping me with my tasks. Do you want to help me again?”

The little boy thought for a moment before nodding. “Can I help you too?” He asked Cyan. 

“Sure! There’s one in here that I could use some help with anyway.”

So the three of you headed into the admin room and gathered at the end of the table. This task was relatively simple, to swipe your card across a card reader and make sure it was accepted. However, from what you had heard the other crewmates say, this task was known to be frustrating as the card reader was apparently rather temperamental. This was quickly proved to be the case as Cyan struggled with her card. After a few tries, each time getting an error, Little Lime asked if he could help. Cyan gladly obliged and let him try to swipe the card. 

After a couple tries, the child had gotten frustrated. He, too ended up giving up on the card and handed it back to Cyan. Cyan, who seemed upset now, had begun frantically swiping her card. If you looked closely, it almost seemed as if she was crying. 

“Here, how about I try?” You offered. 

Without saying anything, she nodded and handed you the card. You ran it across the scanner and by some miracle got it to accept the scan on the first try. You went to hand it back to her, and she thanked you, but seemed to be nervous.

”Please I promise I just couldn’t get it to work!” She tried to explain. “I have the task, I do, I just have really bad coordination.”

You raised an eyebrow. Why was she being so defensive? Everyone had the task, it was something called a ‘common task’ apparently, which meant everyone had to get it done at some point. You had gone over that in training. You simply reassured her that it was fine, and told her that you were going to do the wires. 

Sighing, you began the process of reattaching the disconnected wires to eachother. It was slow work, especially when Little Lime decided to sit next to you and ask you questions about every move you made, but you eventually got it done. Cyan had split from you for a few moments to do some wiring at the top of the storage room, but you were able to keep track of her by yelling down the hallway and sending Little Lime back and forth to retrieve tools. 

The task took twice as long with how tired you were, so you and Cyan made a decision to both go take a nap and then meet up for more tasks afterwords. The two of you walked together to the bedrooms and gave eachother a wave before heading into your neighboring rooms. 

Exhausted, you plopped on top of your bed without even bothering to change out of your suit or go under the covers. You simply took off your helmet, oxygen, and boots and placed your head on the pillow. 

*******

You woke up a couple hours later, suprised that you had not slept longer as you had forgotten to set an alarm. You sent a message to Cyan to see if she was awake.

> **DIRECT MESSAGE:** _crew/mission 201.8/GRAP0, CYAP9_

* * *

**GRAY** : Hey you awake?

 **CYAN** : Yep just woke up

 **GRAY** : Me too. Wanna get food then go back to work?

 **CYAN** : Ya. Foods a good idea, I’m hungry and the kid’s stomach is rumbling. 

**GRAY** : Alright. Meet you in caf in five minutes.

 **CYAN** : ok see u there!

* * *

Slowly you got out of the bed, put your accessories back on, and began to make your way to the cafeteria. You were a bit sluggish from your nap, so you were running a little bit late. Hopefully your task partner would be ok with that. On the way, you passed by Brown, headed to her room to rest. You told her you had just done the same thing, and wished her a good nap. She thanked you, and you rushed off, now even later than you had planned. 

When you got to the cafeteria, Cyan and Little Lime were already eating. There were several people in the cafeteria, including Black and Yellow who were sitting at the table with Blue and White. Green was leaving, probably to meet up with Red somewhere. You nearly bumped into him on his way out, and he seemed irritated. There was an attempt at an apology but he did not seem receptive, so you decided it was best to carry on before aggravating him anymore. You gave your partners a wave upon seeing them at a table and went to grab your food before sitting down to discuss a game plan. You had decided that next, you would be headed to the right side of the ship. Both of you needed to get some tasks done in the oxygen room, and you also had one in navigation. Little Lime also wanted to stop by weapons to watch the asteroids, and you promised he could if he behaved. He was excited. 

The two of you were about to head off to start your tasks again when an alert you had never seen before flashed across your tablets. This must have been the new system Black had been talking about.

> **DEAD BODY REPORTED** _(BROP12)_


	20. [File 19: Conflicting]

Nearly everyone was already in the cafeteria when the alert flashed on their screens. The only outliers, besides poor Brown, being Green, Red, and Purple. Red and Purple came sprinting in together from the left side of the cafeteria, then Green arrived from the right. 

“Brown is dead.” Black started the meeting, serious as always. “Who found the body?”

”I reported it.” Green stated. At first you thought he was lying, but as you looked to your screen you saw that the megaphone icon was indeed next to his picture. “She was dead in storage.”

”Did you see anyone in the area?” Asked White.

“Well, when I was headed there to do a task, I saw Gray walking up from there.” 

Several eyes turned to you and you felt panic rise in your chest. You had a defense that was relatively solid, but Green had gotten the first word in. You had to take a breath to recompose yourself, but still stuttered a bit at the beginning of your rebuttal. 

“W-when I was walking back from the bedrooms I headed through storage and the admin hallway to meet my partner for lunch. I saw Brown, who said she was going to take a nap. When I got to the cafeteria I saw Green leave in that direction.”

”So you are saying you saw Brown still alive as you were headed to the cafeteria.” Stated Black.

”Yes. She said she was going to take a nap.”

”I can confirm she was going to nap.” Purple corroborated. “Red, Brown, and I were all doing tasks together and she split off to go take a nap. I should have gone with her.” The purple astronaut looked at the floor, likely contemplating different ways she could have prevented Brown’s fate.

”It wasn’t your fault.” Red attempted to comfort her. “You had no idea.”

”Why wasn’t Green with you, Red?” Black asked.

”No offense, but there’s no way we can work together.” Red changed his tune quickly. “He takes so long on his ******* tasks!”

”At least I do mine!” Green responded.

”Oh please. I do my tasks, you’re just so busy trying to find the most convincing way to slack off that you miss it! Purple saw me doing mine-“ You looked over to Purple who nodded. “-which is how I ended up working with her in the first place. Brown was supposed to be with you!” 

“You were supposed to stay with your assigned partner so that things like this don’t happen!” White yelled, exasperated. 

“Wait, so let me get this straight. Red and Green were partners, as well as Brown and Purple. And they switched, so Red is with Purple and Green was with Brown.” 

Red and Purple agreed. 

“So when exactly did Green leave?” Asked Black.

“I left before Brown. I needed to get coffee. I wasn’t even there, i’m telling you that it’s Gray!”

”I don’t think it is.” Cyan spoke up. “I couldn’t get my card to swipe, but they got it to swipe on the first try. Weren’t we saying that an impostor couldn’t do tasks?” 

“What proof of that do we have? Let me guess, Purple told you.” Green sighed. “Why does nobody else think it’s suspicious that Purple seems to have all these answers?”

”So are you saying Gray or Purple is suspicious?” Asked Yellow. 

“Well, wasn’t Purple saying that there could be two? Why not her and Gray. Throw them both out!”

”Hold on, Purple was nowhere near the body. I was with her basically the entire time.” Red intterupted. “I only lost her for a few minutes while I was finishing a task and she went off to do another one.”

“Well I don’t think it’s Gray either. They’ve had a lot of chances to murder me, and they helped catch Pink.” Yellow offered. You gave her a smile to thank her for sticking up for you.

Purple spoke next. “Honestly the one that’s the most suspicious here is Green.” 

”We have been suspicious of him before.” Blue spoke, surprising everyone once again. 

“Blue, bro!” Green had an expression of what looked like betrayal on his face. “We were pals!”

Blue mumbled something unintelligible and nobody bothered to ask him to repeat it.

“Alright, why don’t both Green and Gray explain their stories in as much detail as possible.” Black suggested. “It is best we have the full story before making any judgement.” 

You volunteered to go first, seeing as you had nothing to hide. Giving a careful account of your pathway between tasks, your nap, and the meal you had been about to eat was not too difficult. While explaining, you were careful to avoid sounding hesitant when possible to avoid any suspicion. From what you could see of your crewmates’ faces, they seemed to believe you.

Green, however, was obviously panicked. He knew that a majority of the suspicion was on him, and if he failed to defend himself, he would be ejected out into space. He did a decent job of explaining his pathing as well, but the only part of his explanation that anyone was focused on was the part where he had left the cafeteria. All he said was that he walked in to find Brown dead, and had absolutely no evidence as to who was around. 

“Cone on guys, if I had killed her, would I really tell everyone I found her dead body?” Green asked, tired of defending himself. 

“Self report?” muttered Purple.

”That could be a strategy.” Stated Red. “To say you found the body to get suspicion off of you.”

”And you had the perfect chance to blame it on Gray after seeing them go that way.” White followed-up.

“There’s one issue with that.” Said Blue. “Good theory, but Green isn’t smart enough to pull that off.” 

“See, thank you Blue.” Green stated.

”Did you not just hear that he called you an idiot?” Asked Red

“He didn’t say that, he just said that I wouldn’t think up an evil plot, which I appreciate because you all apparently think I ******* murdered someone.”

”Nah. I called you an idiot.” Blue shrugged.

“Well, he did think Gray was dead when they clearly weren’t...” White started, earning a glare from the commander.

”And then he tried to get me voted off for a death that didn’t even happen.” Yellow added.

”Well, that’s not stupid, that’s just suspicious.” Stated Red. “Very suspicious.”

”I think I’ve worked out what could have happened last round.” Purple began, once again earning an unexplained nudge from Cyan. This time even Purple seemed confused as to what she had said wrong. “When the lights went out, Green was already hiding in the vents. While a big group went to fix them, he figured someone would still be in their room, so he locked the doors, went through the vents, and attacked Brown. He didn’t expect Brown to fight back though, so he retreated into the vents and decided to return to his room, where he knew he was most likely alone. However, he found that he had accidentally locked Gray in his room with him and was about to kill them, but then the lights got fixed and he knew Blue would be heading back, so he just tried to pass them off as already dead and get someone else ejected in the process. When that failed and Gray was actually alive, he knew he had to get rid of any witnesses. So he finished the job on Brown and pinned it on Gray to get them out and get the suspicion off of him for pretending Gray was dead.”

Green looked dumbfounded and was attempting to process everything that Purple had just said. 

Either Purple had made up an extremely elaborate story, or she had just caught the impostor. And despite everyone’s vague suspicions on her, the vast majority of the crew seemed impressed and convinced by her deduction. 

The person who seemed the least convinced? Black, actually. 

“Do you have any evidence of any of this?” She asked. “Is there a way to prove that someone has been traveling through the vents?”

”Well, for Green, no. But with Pink we had found that piece of fabric in the vent.”

”Which you lost, and only had a low-quality picture of as evidence. Not to mention the fact that even after we ejected Pink, there were still attacks, and a murder.” 

“With all due respect, Captain, we have no proof that Pink was innocent. The impostor could have a partner. In fact, if I was the impostor, working alone would be-“

”That is really ******* sus, Purple.” Green motioned to her. He attempted to mock her voice “ _‘If I was the impostor’, *****_ I’m pretty sure you are.”

”While Green is being incredibly unprofessional I do think he may have a point. Where does all this knowledge come from?” Black asked. 

Purple exchanged a panicked look with Cyan. Cyan looked at the kid beside her and then back to the floor before moving to say something.

“Me. I-“

Purple literally yelled over her friend. “Us. She means us. We’ve been on a ship like this before, a mission like this. What she’s trying to do is say it’s just her giving me this information, to protect me, because chances are now that the impostor knows we know all about them, we will be their next target.”

”A mission like this? You couldn’t have been part of the last crew, and that was the only mission I know of.” Mentioned White. 

“That you know of.” Purple repeated.

”Hold on, let Cyan talk.” Black instructed Purple. “Is that what you were going to say?”

The astronaut looked flustered and took a moment before she spoke. “Yes that’s what I was going to do. She knows me so well. I, uh, don’t have the best sense of self-preservation. Suppose I should now, since this little buddy seems to want to stick by me.” She pulled Little Lime close to her. 

Black seemed to think for a moment. “Alright. I’ll believe that for now, but after this meeting the two of you, and the kid, are going to meet with me privately to discuss your last mission. Both Purple and Cyan have been accounted for when this murder happened so I don’t see a reason to vote either of them off yet. I urge my crew to skip this vote and reserve judgment until I call a meeting later.”

”No.” Fumed Red. “We are not doing this again.”

”Excuse me, Crewmember Red?” It was obvious Black felt extremely disrespected.

”I said no. We are not skipping again. Almost every single time we meet Green has been suspicious. This isn’t just about how much I dislike him, we have placed him the closest to two separate dead bodies, and possibly the attack on Brown and Gray. He tried to get Yellow voted out by lying about Gray’s death. He was the last one seen with Brown, and she’s dead. How many people are we going to let him kill until we vote him out? Enough’s enough. I don’t want any more blood on our hands.” Red spoke with passion and frustration. 

You had to admit, a portion of you agreed with that. Green had been consistently suspicious, maybe it was time for him to go. But at the same time, if you were wrong...

”This is ridiculous! You have no ******* evidence! Everything you’re basing suspicions off of is conjecture!”

”Conjecture? You were last placed with two people who are dead, Green.” Red sighed. “I’m suprised you even know what conjecture means. But again, this isn’t personal. It sounds that way, but it’s not. I’m just imagining if my partner...” He looked off into the distance.

”Seriously? You want to throw me off the ship because you’re thinking about your girlfriend? With the way you talk, I bet you cheat on her with every woman that moves.” Green yelled back. 

“I would never do anything to hurt my partner. The thing I want more than anything else is just to hold my love in my arms again. Without all this space nonsense, before the return from that mission, when my love still smiled...” he trailed off.

”Green! Red! Both of you be quiet and don’t bring your personal lives into this.” White ordered, surprising everyone with his seriousness. “I think we have heard enough. It’s time for everyone to place their votes.”

You looked down at the tablet in front of you, eyes glancing over the now four ‘x’ icons, each representing another fallen crew member. You could not let anyone else die unnecessarily. With one last look around the table, you made your selection.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Poll 4: [closed]


	21. [File 20: Comrade]

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Poll 4 majority- Green: (59%)

You voted for Green. As much as you hated the idea of ejecting him out into space, as you had Pink, you could not risk him killing anyone else. If you were right, this would stop the killings. If you were wrong, well, you did not dare think about that. It seemed as if everyone, or nearly everyone was sure it was Green. 

The voting reflected that, it seemed. 

Green had voted for you, for obvious reasons. 

Cyan, Blue, and Black had all chosen to skip. Cyan avoided voting for reasons that had already been covered- she refused to vote every time. Blue skipped because apparently although he did not trust Green, they had been buddies for a while and he felt weird voting his roommate out. Black also skipped, which everyone found marginally weirder. Black’s explanation was that she wanted to hear out Purple and Cyan’s story before judging anyone. You found it odd as both of them had been accounted for during this kill, although Purple had been alone with Red. Perhaps that was her line of thinking. 

Besides you, Purple, Red, Yellow, and White had all voted for Green. Technically if you had voted to skip, there would have been a tie and Green would have not been ejected, but you avoided thinking about that. Any of the others could have chosen not to vote for Green, and yet they still did. 

Green was panicking. He had not looked necessarily surprised, but was more desperate to find a way out of this situation. Had it been you, you would have felt the same way. 

“Why don’t we just check everyone’s tablets?” Asked Green as his helmet fogged up with sweat. “The impostor is sabotaging things using it, right? Whoever has it set up like Silver’s has to be the killer.”

Several people exchanged looks, perplexed as to why nobody had thought of this earlier. 

“You might actually have a point, Green.” Stated White. “I don’t know if not having it would prove anything neccesarrily, but having it would.” White looked over to Black for approval, and upon earning a nod, he instructed everyone to lie their tablets down on the meeting table. Black quickly rushed to her and White’s quarters to grab those of the deceased. 

At first glance, everyone’s tablets looked similar. There was not much customization allowed or available due to them technically being the property of MIRA, but it was easy to tell which tablet belonged to who by their color-coded cases. Black returned quickly and laid hers out, along with Silver’s, Orange’s, Lime’s, and Pink’s. Green offered to go get Brown’s, but Black instructed White to get it instead. Once he returned and placed Brown’s on the table, there were fourteen tablets in total surrounding the emergency button. 

There was an odd pattern that everyone noticed immediately. Most of the devices were in good condition, except for those that belonged to the deceased crewmembers. Orange’s was cracked, which had actually been partially your fault now that you remembered it. You mentioned that the two of you had ran into eachother while you were at Mira HQ. Lime’s kid spoke up next and said that the crack on Lime’s was his fault, and why he had been given Silver’s to play with in the first place. You had a vague memory of him saying something about breaking his father’s tablet when you had first approached him about it. Pink’s had apparently gotten knocked off the table as they fought against Black and White before being ejected, which must have been the shattering glass you had heard. At the time, you had thought it might have been their helmet. Brown’s was also cracked, although nobody was sure exactly how that had happened. Someone mentioned that Brown had said they threw their tablet at their attacker along with their chair, so it could have broken then. 

As weird as the pattern was, it did not prove anything. There was nobody still alive who’s tablet had broken, so there was no useful information you could glean from it. It was likely just an unlucky coincidence. What mattered was that all fourteen tablets were operational. Black handed Silver’s tablet to Cyan, who had discovered its functions in the first place. She handed it to Little Lime, who explained to everyone how he found a hidden application on it.

The application was password-protected, but it had apparently been left open when the kid found it. From what everyone remembered seeing on it, it apparently could sabotage certian onboard systems, and had an alternate list of tasks that were labeled as fake. They matched up with the crewmember’s assigned tasks, but these ones never registered as complete even if they were done, apparently. However, the tablet had since refreshed, and nobody could enter the application anymore. While that was only marginally helpful, everyone knew what to look for on their tablets now. 

Black decided she would inspect each tablet, one by one, with everyone watching. If anyone had the application, it was grounds for ejection. 

Green’s was technically supposed to be first as he was the one being accused, but he insisted that yours be searched first. It was likely he was just trying to delay his inevitable discovery as the impostor, but you agreed to humor him. After all, you had nothing to hide. 

At least, you had not thought so.

You waited patiently, expecting this to be over relatively quickly, but oh how wrong you were. The chatter between everyone had suddenly gone silent. You had a bad feeling about this. 

“Care to explain why you are in possession of the sabotage app, Gray?”

You were genuinely confused. 

“I have the what?”

Black pointed out to you, buried in a system documents folder you had never even bothered to look into, was the application that Silver had on his tablet. 

You panicked. You had never seen nor used it before, but here you were, about to get thrown out because of this app you had not even known existed. Desperate to explain yourself, you tried your best to sound the least suspicious as possible while honestly telling the others you had no idea that it was there, when it got there, or even what the password to it was. This was bad. _Really_ bad. 

It was painfully obvious that nobody believed you. What reason would they have to? If you saw this situation from their perspective, you would have considered whoever had it to be the guilty party easily. 

“So, a recount then?” Asked Green. “I told you it was them! We need to stop making decisions before we have all the information.”

“Hold on for a minute, Green.” Stated Black. “We have not checked yours yet. It’s possible the two of you are working together, and you’re just throwing them under the bus so we trust you.”

”Even for a murderer, that’s cold.” Mumbled White.

“Sure.” Green shrugged. “I will easily be proven innocent when you see that I don’t have this application.”

Black gave him the side eye and tapped on his tablet. Not even ten seconds later, she informed the crew that he had the application as well. He was also shocked.

“No, there’s no way! Gray had to have put it on my tablet somehow, or switched mine and Silver’s, or something!” 

“You might have a point.” Mumbled Purple.

”See! Purple agrees with me!”

”Not in the way you think. I’m still convinced it’s you, but I think this application thing isn’t that simple.”

Purple reached for her tablet, making sure to show what she was doing to everyone, and showed that she indeed also had the application. Upon this discovery, one by one, everyone went through their tablets, as well as the tablets of the deceased crewmembers. It turned out that this application was on every single tablet, except for Orange’s. However the application was password-protected, and nobody knew or was willing to admit what the password was.

“So, it’s something everyone has, besides Orange apparently. Why would something like this be built-in to our tablets?” White thought aloud. 

“Are you sure it’s built-in?” Asked Purple.

”Well, MIRA has done some shifty stuff. You said yourself that you were on another mission even though we’ve only been told of one more before us.”

”Right.” Purple rubbed the back of her neck awkwardly. “I did say that, didn’t I?” 

“I’m not sure though. Why wouldn’t Orange have it?” Asked Black.

”What if it was in the update?” Asked Cyan. 

“The update?” You replied.

”Yes. Yesterday all the tablets required an update, right? You had to restart it. Orange’s probably never got restarted because it was just sitting in Black’s room.” 

White replied “That actually makes a lot of sense, Cyan.” 

“So you’re saying this doesn’t prove anything?” Green asked, fear showing on his face again. “How can I prove I’m innocent, please?”

”We already voted, Green.” Said White. “The information didn’t change anything. Everyone has the app, so it doesn’t affect you. I’m sorry, but it’s time.”

Green screamed, causing several people to wince, as he tried to run out of the room. However, White and Black held him back and prevented him from running. Quickly, Cyan picked up Little Lime, placed him on her shoulders, and left the room. She did not want the kid to see Green get ejected, which was probably for the best. Purple followed after her, and soon you and Yellow left the room. Red followed, leaving only Black, White, and Blue in the room. As you exited the room, you heard a crunch. Turning around to see what it was, you saw that Red had stepped on Green’s tablet as he left, cracking the screen. It was an accident, but it just reinforced the weird connection between the tablets and death.

Your group had gotten out of range before you assumed Green was ejected. Again, that was probably for the best, as he had begin to yell and fight. You would probably do the same in his situation, try anything to keep yourself alive. But, you were not a murderer, and he was. You were so emotionally exhausted that you could not focus on pitying him. Instead you had to focus on the fact that you had gotten justice for his victims, and that nobody else would die due to his hands. 

Despite your nap, you were tired. From the ‘time’, you could tell that it was getting close to when the ship would go into night mode to help facilitate sleep. Something about these days seemed extremely long, as if each day was about two weeks in length. Man, you could tell you were getting tired at this point. You had not had a decent night of sleep for a while, and you could really use one. So, waving goodbye to everyone, you headed to your quarters to lie down. 

As you went to lay your tablet on the charger, it buzzed with a new notification from the group messaging application. It was from Black.

> **GROUP MESSAGE:** _crew/mission 2.018/all_

* * *

**BLACK:** Partners have been shuffled due to the recent incident. New partners are as follows-

 **BLACK:** Gray and I, White and Red, Yellow and Cyan, and Blue and Purple.

 **BLACK:** I just went down the list, no funny business. Partnerships start tomorrow at 0800 hours. 

* * *

You had to admit, you were not exactly thrilled to be paired up with Black. She was extremely intimidating, and could probably easily take you in a fight. Not to mention she had gotten several votes on the poll before last. Hopefully, though, you would be safe. First of all, killing your partner would have to be pretty stupid, and Black seemed as if she would be more cunning if she was the killer. However, you had gotten Green and Pink out, so there was a high possibility that you had ejected at least one impostor. Perhaps there was only one. There was no proof neccesarily that there was more than one, but also no way to prove there was just one. In a perfect world, it would have been both Pink and Green and now the killings would stop. 

You were about to put your tablet down after setting an alarm for the morning, when you received another message notification. This one, however, looked different. When you tapped on it to reply, it took you to a messaging screen that looked very similar, but not quite the same as the one you had been using before. There were a few small differences such as the color scheme of the messaging screen, but the main difference was the fact that you had absolutely no idea who sent the message. It was probably not a good idea to view it, but your curiosity got the better of you and you opened the message.

> new message: _(sender unknown)_

* * *

_?????_ Good job on Green. If you were to vote right next time, you would win.

* * *

What? Was whoever messaging you trying to tell you that you had been right on Green? How did they know? Why did they not say anything?

* * *

_GRAP0_ Are you saying it was him? Who are you?

 _?????_ An ally of sorts. I help you out, you’ll help me out.

 _GRAP0_ Why?

 _?????_ Let’s just say in your situation, I would wish I had someone like me in my corner if I was you.

 _GRAP0_ Why don’t you help everyone?

 _?????_ Can’t trust everyone. I know you’re safe, and that you won’t go ratting me out.

 _GRAP0_ How do you know? That I’m safe I mean.

 _?????_ I have my ways. Let’s just say I have a color-coded system to know who’s on my team... and who’s not.

 _GRAP0_ What do you want?

 _?????_ Simple. I keep you alive, and in exchange, if anything were to... happen, you follow my lead.

 _GRAP0_ How will I know? What to do, I mean.

????? I’ll give you the same code I’ve given my other ally. 

* * *

Other ally? Secret code? You knew you should not have opened this message. You were in deep now, and you had a feeling that things would not go well for you if you did not agree to this stranger’s plan. At this point, there was only one question burning in your mind. You hesitated after typing out the message, wondering if you should send it. But, at this point, you were in deep enough, so you had to know.

* * *

_GRAP0_ Are you an impostor?

* * *

As you anxiously waited for a reply, you heard a hiss behind you. You turned around to see that the doors to your room had locked shut. There was no way that was a coincidence. Your tablet buzzed with a new message, and you heart dropped as you looked down to see their reply.

* * *

_?????_ Does that answer your question?

 _GRAP0_ Yes.

????? Good. Because if you betray me, I have ways of getting my revenge. I have someone else who will side with me, and has been instructed to kill you should I be voted off. 

?????: You can see the position you are in, and why it would be of your benefit to listen to me, correct?

 _GRAP0_ I understand.

????? I’m glad. And one more thing,

????? the code is ‘ _consequences_ ’


	22. [File 21: Comfort]

You got very little sleep that night. Partially due to Yellow’s paranoid refusal to turn off the lights once again, but mostly because your mind was buzzing with questions regarding the message you had received. For a moment you wondered if it was a trick of some kind, but then you remembered the doors closing at just the exact moment. Not only was that nearly confirmation of the stranger’s role, but it also showed that the stranger must have either known where you were or had an awfully good guess as to where you had been. 

As you tossed and turned through the artificial night, you mulled over the situation in your mind. Assuming that this was a legitimate message, you were in a highly dangerous situation. The impostor, the one who had literally murdered your crewmates, was talking directly to you. And they wanted to make a deal.

Your life in exchange for you not ratting them out if they did something around you. 

But could you trust them? Probably not. Still, they had said that if you ended up leading to their ejection, they were taking you down with them no matter what. You wondered who exactly their partner was. They had implied they were the only impostor left, but they still had someone willing to help them get revenge. So the choices were possible death or certian death, neither of which was a great option. 

You supposed the one good thing about all of this was the confirmation on Green. The impostor had confirmed that Green was a good call, and you only had to vote off one more to win. So Purple had been right, there were probably two impostors. Of course, your stomach sank when you realized that the impostor had never mentioned Pink. You were unsure what that had meant for Pink, but you were leaning towards them being innocent. But you had been so sure it was them. You had evidence in your hand. 

There was also the argument that the impostor had been giving you false information. Perhaps their aim was simply to mislead you. Although, from the way the messages had been sent, you doubted this. There would not be much of a reason to involve you simply to mislead you. No, this was a desperate attempt for an ally. One impostor against six crewmates. Granted one of them was willing to murder you, but still apparently a crewmate. Yet, if the impostor was reaching out to you, it seems they knew they were beat otherwise. 

A final question, of course, was why you in particular? Maybe because you had helped catch Green last time? Or maybe you knew something that would lead you to their discovery. But what? They had yet to fully reveal themself, so they must have assumed you had everything you need to figure out who. But did you? Sure you had a couple theories, but the only evidence you had seemed to support Pink. If you were to assume this impostor’s lack of congratulation on them meant something, your one actual suspect was not guilty at all. Of course, that was conjecture still. Perhaps you would have to ask them about Pink, if you decided to keep in contact with them that was.

*******

You did eventually end up with an hour or two of sleep, but it was nowhere near enough. Your headache had retuned in full force and overall you did not feel well. When your alarm rang to get out of bed, you were barely able to drag your feet off of the mattress. Typically you would have considered messaging your task partner for a later start time, but this was the captian, and she was scary. 

Instead you dragged yourself through your morning routine, accidentally waking up Yellow in the process. She groaned and flopped over on her bed, asking why you were up so early. You told her that you had been paired with Black for tasks today, and that she would probably want you to be early. 

“Wait, but isn’t Black meeting with Purple and Cyan this morning?” She asked blearily.

”She is?”

”Yeah. I’m supposed to be with Cyan today, remember? She said she had the meeting so we could start later.” 

You went to check your messages, your normal messages that is, and found that you had received a message late last night about not starting until after her meeting. Quickly you typed a reply, telling her to message you when the meeting was done so that you could meet up with her. Great, now you had gotten up early for nothing. You contemplated lying back down, but you were now in your suit and did not neccesarily feel like taking it off just to put it back on. Instead you opted to simply sit on your bed, scrolling through your tablet. 

You had thought Yellow would go back to sleep, but apparently not. 

“Did you get that figured out?” She asked. 

“Yeah. I guess I just missed her message last night.”

It was silent for a while. You tried to slip off to sleep again but as tired as you were, you could not get your brain to stop running. This whole deal with the impostor business was terrifying, and you doubted you would ever be getting a full night of sleep again. Not to mention the fact that your head was pounding and you swore you could feel every small jerk of the spaceship. You groaned and stuffed your pillow over your face to block out the noise and light. 

“Are you alright?” Yellow asked.

”Yeah, I just haven’t slept well in a while, and it’s giving me a headache.”

”That’s rough, buddy. But really, I’m sorry.”

”It’s fine. Just hard to sleep around here.”

”Tell me about it.” She sighed, seemingly pondering something. “Hey Gray?”

”What’s up?”

”I’m going to be honest here. I’m really scared. There’s been a lot of weird stuff happening on this ship, and I just... I don’t want anyone else to get hurt.”

”Me either.” You sighed. “It’s really awful. Our crewmembers dying, having to throw people out into space, it’s like something out of a nightmare.”

”Do you think we were right on Pink?” She asked.

You froze. Had you been right on Pink? If you were to trust the message sent by the impostor, you had been right on Green. And obviously the impostor messaging you would be the other one, so as for Pink, you were really worried at this point that they had been innocent. Yet, you had evidence for them which just magically disappeared. 

”I know Purple said there were probably two impostors, which kind of makes sense, but I was wondering if we got them both.”

What did you do here? If you said that it was Green, not only would you risk upsetting her by telling her she voted an innocent out, but she would wonder where your information came from. 

“Maybe.” You went for the safest choice you could think of. “We were investigating them, and I did find that fabric.”

”Yeah.” Yellow seemed somehow less relieved than you were expecting. “I was pretty sure it was Pink too.”

”Why do you ask?” 

She sighed for a moment. “Just investigating some suspicions I have.”

”How do you feel about Green?” You tested the water, trying to see how much of a basis there was for this impostor confirmation on him. “Do you think he was an impostor?”

”I’m not sure.” You could hear her shift in her bed. “I felt pretty good about throwing him out, but I dunno. Something, some sort of intuition I guess, tells me there’s still another impostor on board. It seems too simple. If the impostors have done this before, which is what we assume happened on the other ship, they wouldn’t get themselves caught so easily, right? It doesn’t make sense. Or, I dunno, it might just be me being paranoid as per usual.”

”No, I actually completely agree.” You encouraged her, truthfully. “I feel like it’s one of those two, and then someone else.”

“I’m glad you understand. I didn’t want to say anything, but it just seems a bit weird. There’s something more going on here, and there’s no way its that simple.”

Once again, you sat in silence. 

“Gray?” Yellow asked, once again. This time her voice wavered, as if she was about to cry.

”If something happens, and we both don’t make it out of here, I just wanted to let you know that you’ve been a great friend to me. Had we not been put together so often, I am sure I would already be dead by now. You’ve stood by me, dealt with my quirks and insecurities, defended me at meetings, and what have I done for you? Nothing.”

”Yellow, you know that’s not true.” You started. 

“No. I almost got you killed, Gray. When the doors all shut and I couldn’t find you I was so scared, I thought you were dead and it was all my fault.” 

“I’m fine. Please, think of all the things you’ve done for me, the times you got me _out_ of tough situations. If it weren’t for you coming and bringing along the others, I would have ended up alone in medbay with Pink. They could have killed me!” You were still unsure about Pink, but the point still stood. There had not been a confirmation that they were not the impostor after all. 

“Yeah.” Yellow sniffed. 

“And you had the idea to cover up the vent in our room. Who knows how many times that’s saved us?” 

You could hear her drying her eyes with her pajama sleeves. 

“My point is, Yellow, a friendship goes two ways. And I am proud to say you have been a good friend to me. And you will be a good friend to me. Because we’re gonna get through this. You and me. If we got the impostors out already that’s great. But if we haven’t, well that sucks for them because they’ll have to deal with our awesome detective skills.”

”You really think we’re gonna make it to the end?” She bent over the edge of her bed to look you in the eyes.

To be honest, you were not sure. With both your infomation and intuition, you were pretty confident that there was still another impostor on board. And it was highly likely that unless they really slipped up, they would have to kill someone in order for you to determine who it was. Sure you had the impostors deal that would apparently protect you, but that was just you as you understood it. That was if you even planned to continue the supposed deal with them. You did not have much of a choice, though. Yet, you could not bring yourself to say this to Yellow. You saw a new flame of hope in her eyes and you could not bring yourself to crush it.

Unfortunately, you ended up taking too long to respond, and that flame was extinguished faster than you could even process. 

“Yeah. Probably not.” She said, voice low.

“Wait, No I just-“

”No. I don’t want you to lie to me.” She sighed, sitting herself back up. “To be honest, I don’t think I’m going to make it.”

”Why do you say that? Is it your partner? Who are you paired up with? I can see if we can switch or-“ To be honest, you really did not trust Black all that much and did not neccesarily want to stick Yellow with her, but you still wanted to offer.

”It’s not that. I’m with Cyan and I don’t think she’d kill me with Lime’s kid practically attached to her. No, it’s more just this feeling I have. I think I’m going to be targeted.”

You sat up from your relaxed position, immediately concerned. “Targeted? What do you mean by that?”

“I dunno. I just feel like I’m going to get on the impostor’s bad side and they’ll be gunning for me in particular. It’s weird, and complicated, I know, I just...” Yellow covered her face with her hands.

”No, it’s ok. I get it.” You reassured her. “Honestly, I kinda feel that too.” Especially with your conversation, you were worried that if you said something or accused the wrong person, the impostor, or their human buddy apparently, would be coming after you in particular as well. “But we will make it through this. I promise you, I’m on your side.” 

“Just promise me one thing.” Yellow said. 

“Yeah?”

”If anything ever happens, regarding me I mean, I want you to read this.” Yellow reached under her pillow and pulled out a small, worn leather book. “It’s my journal. Now don’t get me wrong, I don’t want you reading this now-” She chuckled to herself. “-but if something does happen, I want you to know everything. My thoughts, my emotions, my experiences, everything. I can’t think of anyone else I would trust with this. I trust you, Gray. You’re my best friend.”

The tender moment was interrupted by a buzzing from each of your tablets. Black had finished her meeting with Purple and Cyan, and it was time to start on your tasks. As you slipped your helmet over your head, you heard Yellow sigh behind you.

”I haven’t even gotten out of bed yet!”


	23. [File 22: Code]

It did not take you long to reach the cafeteria, where Black was waiting to meet up with you for tasks. Yellow, who was supposedly meeting up with her task partner afterwords, had not followed. She needed to get ready, and as guilty as you felt about leaving her alone, you did not exactly want to get on Black’s bad side right now. But your room was safe, and you would have eyes on arguably one of the most suspicious people currently on board, so you would just have to make it work and hope for the best.

Black seemed stressed from her meeting earlier. You tried asking her how she felt about Purple and Cyan’s claims to have been on the ship before, but she huffed and told you not to ask any more questions.

”Frankly I’m confused.” Is what Black had said. “One of them made some pretty outlandish claims and I can’t tell if she’s suspicious, or just literally insane. I’m still deciding what to do here so don’t ask.”

”Noted.” You replied awkwardly before glancing at your list of tasks. 

Upon a short discussion, it became painfully clear that the two of you did not have a single task in common. This was going to be a nightmare. You sighed, frustrated as you hoped this would be quick so you could lie down. Your likely-lack-of-sleep-induced headache was still causing a dull pain in the back of your head. Most of her tasks were on the left side of the ship while yours that remained were on the right side. She suggested that you started on yours first, and then circle back to hers. It seemed odd, but practical when it came to finishing tasks in rapid succession. What would happen if you completed all your tasks? It was honestly a good question, so you asked Black as you made your way to weapons. 

“What happens when everyone finishes their tasks?” You asked.

”We’re supposed to reconvene and run another ship diagnostic. Some of them will always need to be done, such as cleaning the oxygen filter and downloading data, but others are one-time things such as fixing the wires.”

”How did some of these things get broken in the first place?”

”Your guess is as good as mine, Gray. We know that Silver was sabotaging the last ship, and they probably had a similar series of incidents due to the small returning crew. Perhaps he broke some of these things.”

”Why wouldn’t they tell us?” If anyone would know, she would. Black and White (as well as Pink) had been the only ones that had actually trained for this mission with Mira. 

“I... don’t know.” She sounded distraught. “Sure there was always chain of command and security clearances, but I feel like this would have to get out somehow. There was no way they would send us on this mission, right?”

You did not offer a response. This whole thing seemed a bit far-fetched, and you were having trouble even trusting your own crewmates, so how could you even begin to trust the organization that put you here in the first place? 

“Anyways, this is completely unprofessional of me and I apologize. I’m just worried about my crew.” 

“You and me both.”

For a while, you simply did your tasks as Black observed. It was kind of terrifying, constantly having the captian looking over your shoulder as you did routine maintenance that she probably knew like the back of her hand. Yet, she did not critique, and instead was more focused on making sure nobody snuck up on the pair of you. 

As you worked on your assigned duties, you wondered if you should tell someone about the message you had received. It would have to be more than one person though. To be honest you did not trust anyone on this ship. The person you trusted most was Yellow, and she seemed paranoid enough already without you dumping this on her as well. Besides, she had no real authority. In order to actually figure this out, you would have to probably tell either Black or White. It would probably be safest to tell them both, but there was also the chance that they were working together. There was always the option of a meeting, there would be too many witnesses for the impostor to try anything, but you would for sure be a target then. 

You sighed as you pressed the last hexagon on the shields task. This had been yet another one that you had to undo and then redo to establish it as complete. Not all of them were like that, but there were a few. You thought about asking in regards to that as well, but Black did not seem in the mood to talk anymore, and her answer would most likely be some fancy version of ‘I dunno’. 

White and Red passed by, coming from the upper right side and headed towards the lower left. You gave a small smile and a wave to the two, neither of which responded. 

“Rude.” You mumbled to yourself.

Despite their ignorance of you, you had cause to celebrate. You had just finished the last task that you had been assigned. All of the hard work that you had been doing the past few days had finally paid off, in a sense. The situation was grim and there had been nothing but bad news for days, but at least you had finished all of your menial tasks. Perhaps after this you could keep a closer eye on your fellow crewmembers and try to trick the impostor into giving you clues as to their identity.

Promptly, you told Black that you had finished all of your tasks. You hoped for a congratulation of some sort, but it quickly became obvious that was too much to expect from Black. She was all business, and after checking some sort of progress bar on tasks reported finished (which was nearly full), she was ready to move on to her tasks. 

Black’s longest task was to do a scan in the medbay, so she decided that would be the next order of business. You briefly remembered doing yours back at headquarters, and could confirm that it would take a bit to set up and complete. Especially without a doctor, who would know what you were doing. Regardless, you could not dwell on it now. You were focused on tasks. If you were able to watch Black scan, it might prove that she was innocent. After all, if the impostors really were aliens like Purple had said, surely a scan would detect that in one way or another.

Although, you had been putting a lot of weight in some of the things Purple had said, and you were starting to wonder why exactly you were trusting her. Earlier, you had been extremely suspicious of her, especially after you two had that run-in in medbay. Her story made sense, supposedly, but something felt off. Maybe it was just an excuse to cover up what she knew from being the impostor, or maybe it was just conspiracy. Why would she turn against her team though? Then again, the impostor in your messages seemed to want to make a deal. As for right now though, you only had the mental energy to focus on one suspicious person. For the time being your main sus seemed to be on Black.

The two of you made your way to medbay, not even attempting to engage in small talk along the way. You were unsure how Black felt about you suspicion-wise. She did not seem too freaked out about being alone with you, but that could be because she was directly placed with you by almost everyone. It would be stupid for you to kill her, or vice versa, when everyone knew you were paired. That went for you too, so you felt as if you were pretty safe despite your suspicions.

Finally you arrived in the dreaded room, dreaded of course because this seemed to be where all the drama happened. Black told you that setting up the scanner would take a while, so you plopped yourself down on one of the beds. She was messing with the scanner in one way or another, but you did not bother to pay attention. It was a bit suspicious how long she was taking, and decided to mentally file that away for later, but did not dare to question her. 

Instead you simply brought out your tablet and checked for notifications or messages. The main thing you had been curious about was any more messages from the impostor. Yet you did not have a single message from anyone, crewmate or otherwise. You wondered if there was a way to contact them and send a message yourself. Should you? Probably not. But you were still curious as to how it was possible. The messages had not been in your normal direct messages, they had been in something else.

You scrolled through your past notifications and clicked on the last message from the unknown sender to take you to it. Where it brought you was nowhere other than the sabotage application. Oh boy, you were in deep now. You panicked for a moment before reminding yourself that it had been on everyone’s tablet, as you had discovered on your last meeting. It was still password-protected though. After glancing over to Black to make sure she was still busy, you decided to try to get in.

But how? All of the password ideas you could think of were either too obvious or something you would not know. There was no way you could guess your way in. There had to be something shared between the impostors somehow, something that they would share with eachother. A code.

Then it dawned on you. The last message, the impostor had given you a code that they would share if they were in trouble. Maybe that was the password. It would make sense, as they never gave you anything else to unlock their secret messaging system with. Seeing as you had nothing better to do, and it was much too late to pretend none of this had happened, you typed in the code you were given- ‘consequences’.

And you were in.

You gasped in surprise, you had only partially been expecting that to work. Yet, here you were, faced with several different options. Some of them confused you. They seemed to be corrupted versions of normal applications, such as the messaging system and the task list. The messaging system you actually opened, and there were your messages with the impostor. You quickly closed back to the main menu. There was also a shortcut to the voting system which confused you, what could possibly be changed about that? The votes had not been messed with at all.

The one that caught your eye most was the sabotage screen. This was what had been causing all the issues around the ship. Nearly every room had an icon that seemed to be tied to the doors. There were also several icons in different rooms pertaining to critical systems such as the reactor and communications. 

You had to see if this was legitimate. And the only way to confirm was to test something. But what? You could try a door, but the only one you would be able to actually see would be the one in medbay. And on the chance that Black was innocent, it would look really suspicious if the door closed when it was just the two of you in there. No, you needed something that could not be traced to you. 

You did not want to put anyone in danger, so your options were down to communications or lights. To be honest you were not sure exactly what communications would do, but if it brought down the tablet network, it would be hard to ask anyone else if theirs was working. So that left what you assumed was lights, after they had apparently gone out several times before.

You reached out to tap the lightning-shaped icon, but nothing happened. 

Suddenly all of the icons on the screen faded to a darker color, and the emergency alarm began to sound.

Was that you?

You looked at the alert that had popped up on your screen.

> **ALERT:** _ **OXYGEN MALFUNCTION** -_ _Oxygen Depleted in 90 seconds (0/2)_

Ironically, you sighed in relief for a moment. That had not been you. The button you had been closest to pressing was a lightning icon over electrical on the map, one that you assumed would mess with the lights. However, nothing seemed to have happened when you pressed it, as a different one was triggered. So no, this was not you, and it was almost comforting. Maybe only impostors could use this screen.

However, none of that mattered at the moment, as your ship was going to stop circulating oxygen in a little over a minute if you did not get your butt over to fix it in time. Black jumped off the scanner, and the two of you ran to the Cafeteria. You remembered from your training that while one of the keypads for the override was in the oxygen room itself, the other one was located somewhere else. You could not remember where but that did not seem to matter as your partner yelled out “Admin” and began to head that way. You assumed that was where the other one was, so you started heading the other direction towards the oxygen room. 

On the way, you ran past Cyan, urging the kid along with her. 

“Why are you running away?” You yelled out to her while running. 

“Blue and Yellow are up there. I’ll fix lower.” 

By then she was out of range, so you could not tell her that the bottom was already being taken care of. However, it probably would be good for Black to have an accountability partner of sorts. Since you were almost to the top, however, you kept running that way.

By the time you turned the corner, though, the alarm had stopped going off. Your tablet buzzed with the resolution message.

> **OXYGEN MALFUNCTION** resolved

You still thought it was a good idea to look in and check to see who was in there and who had actually fixed it. That decision ended up being a huge mistake.

When you rounded the corner to look in the room, you immediately screamed. It came out as a feeble squeal as you were still panting from running, but it did not mater. There was Blue, dead on the floor of the oxygen room. A large puddle of blood had spread underneath him, and the visor of his helmet was completely shattered.

But the scariest thing was not the dead body on the floor. No, it was far worse.

Yellow was standing right above the body, shaking. Your eyes met with hers through the visors of your helmets, and panic ensued. 

”Wait, please it’s not what it looks like! Just hear me out, let me say something before you hit that button.”

”What could you possibly need to say? Blue is dead, and you’re alone with his body.” Your voice wavered as a sob caught in your throat.

”Please please just let me explain I didn’t-“ Yellow trailed off, mumbling something to herself. 

She was crying now too, and you felt your finger shake as you reached for the button. However, your finger froze and your tablet nearly fell out of your hands at her next choice of words. 

”If this gets reported while I’m still standing here, there-“ She turned to look you in the eyes, an expression of fear and regret running across her features. “-there’s gonna be _consequences_.”


	24. [File 23: Concession]

That was the code. Yellow had just used the secret code that had been given to you by the impostor. She had been intentional about it too, thinking it over and looking you in the eyes as she said it. This was no coincidence. If she was using that code, and standing above a body... But why? How? The two of you had been stuck like glue. She just seemed so innocent. And this morning, the whole conversation where you shared your fears, was that all fake too? Your hands began to shake as tears welled up in your eyes. Had she betrayed you? 

Your hand did not move from the report button as your eyes met hers. ”What did you say?” 

Her eyes grew to the size of dinner plates as she repeated herself. “... does that mean something to you?” She looked down and whispered. “Please tell me it does.”

”Why would that mean something to me?” You asked, bluffing. You wanted her to explain how she knew the code without reveling yourself. You were still ready to tap the button at a moment’s notice. 

Then she started sobbing. “I know this looks so bad but please, please, you have to listen. I trust you. I didn’t do this.”

”If you didn’t do this then why are you standing above the body? Why didn’t you report it?”

”I saw it happen. I saw- I saw the impostor kill him. Right in front of me before running off. But if I report this, they’ll kill me.”

”Well if you tell everyone who it is, and they’re ejected, they can’t hurt you.”

”But they told me themself, they have another ally, whatever that means. Someone who they’re working with that’s not an impostor, that is supposed to side with them no matter what.”

You. That was you. You remembered the message mentioning their ally, who would kill you if the impostor got voted off. Maybe the ally really was not an impostor then, but someone else in the same situation as you. If Yellow was telling the truth, they were threatening her too. 

“Are you working with the impostor?” That was the only explanation for her knowing the code, besides her being the impostor which you had not ruled out yet.

”Not working with! They messaged me. I- please don’t tell anyone, but I’ve been getting these unknown messages from someone who says they are the impostor. I don’t know why they’re talking to me but if I step out of line at all they’re gonna kill me.”

”Is that why you said you felt targeted?”

”Yeah. I should have told you then but I was not supposed to tell anyone and if they find out...”

You tried to process what Yellow had been saying, and frankly it was a lot. The way you saw it, there were two options here. Either she was telling the truth, and she was somehow in the same situation you were in, or she was using this as an excuse to manipulate you into not voting her off. There was no evidence to prove or disprove either option, besides her literally being alone with a dead body. All you knew is that you were hurt. There was a significant chance that Yellow had betrayed you, the same person that just this morning had poured her heart out to you and spoke about your friendship. It had seemed so genuine, but was it? 

“Prove it to me.” You said, trying to keep a straight face. “Can you show me the messages?”

Honestly, you had expected a no. Some sort of excuse or question. Yet, she had nodded and typed a few things on her tablet before pulling up the sabotage app. So she had figured out the code was the password too? Hm.

You were painfully aware of the fact that you and Yellow were standing in a small room without a door, practically on top of a dead body. If anyone were to pass by, this would be extremely suspicious. The safest choice would have been to simply report it right away and vote Yellow off, but you had to hear her out. It was entirely possible she was manipulating you the entire time, so you remained observant, but this was not just about your friendship with her. This was also about finding the impostor. If you went into the meeting saying how you had seen Yellow with poor Blue’s body, they would vote her off immediately. If somehow it was not her, you would never know what she knew. And, she was your friend. She deserved better.

Yellow handed you her tablet with shaking hands. “It’s all here.” She said. “Everything. I don’t know why it’s in another messaging system but I don’t know how else to explain it’s not fake it’s just what I was sent and-“

”It’s ok.” You said, glancing back at her. “They talked to me too. That’s why I didn’t report the body right away. I recognized the code. I’m the other ally.”

You typed in the password on your tablet and handed it to her, letting her look through your messages with the impostor. She looked at you, shocked.

“How long?” Was all she asked. 

”Just yesterday.”

You scrolled back through her messages to find that this conversation had been going on for a while. Much longer than yours had been. There was not enough time to read through it all, but you did your best to skim through it. It looked incredibly similar to yours for the most part. You even checked to find the first mention of this ‘ally’, and sure enough it was around the same time you had gotten your message from them. Unless this was an elaborate ruse, the explanation checked out.

”If you don’t believe me, send them a message. Ask if they’re talking to me, please just don’t vote me out.” 

You thought about it. That would be one way to clear them for sure, and you were about to switch over to the sabotage app to send the message when you realized something. If the impostor had wanted you to get together, they would have told you who the other ally was. Instead, the impostor had threatened Yellow with you, saying even if they were called out someone (the someone being you in this case) would stand up for them and kill her off, and vice versa. The idea was not for the two of you to form an alliance, but instead to be terrified to get close to anyone.

And that was when you realized the impostor’s mistake: there were two of you.

”I’m not going to send that message.”

Yellow seemed suprised. “Why? Do you really trust me that much?”

”No. Well, maybe. I’m not sure. Trust isn’t what this is about. I have a plan.”

”A plan?”

”Well, you see, the impostor made a mistake. They chose two allies. The idea was to condition us to be afraid of eachother, because with two of us, if one of us decided to rebel, the impostor would still have the majority with the other one. Two on one, right?”

Yellow nodded. “So no matter what, if one of us acted up, the other two would still have a majority vote.”

”Yes, but what they had not planned for was if the majority was flipped the other way. If you and I, who are supposed to be terrified of eachother, both went against the impostor, we would have the majority. We could vote them out.”

”And you’re not asking them, so they don’t know we’re together, and they won’t see it coming!” Yellow looked up. “That’s brilliant, Gray!”

“We only have one shot at this, and we’re running out of time.” You stepped closer to Yellow and placed your hands on her shoulders. “Who did you see kill Blue?”

She looked at the wall, and you could feel her shaking. “But if I tell you they’ll kill me. Even without you. They’ll have nothing to lose and take me down with them I-“ Yellow sniffled. “I want the death to stop and I feel like it’s my duty as a person but I don’t want to be a sacrifice.”

”Look me in the eyes.” You told her. “Please.” 

It was a couple moments before her tear-filled eyes returned to your vision and met yours.

“Nothing is going to happen to you. I promise. Once we get to that meeting, there is nothing they can do to hurt you. Have you seen some of our crew members? You and I will stand as far away from them as possible. We will leave the room as soon as the decision is made. I will not let anyone hurt you even if I have to throw them out of the ship myself, do you hear me?” 

She nodded as her face turned to an expression of determination.

”Who was it, Yellow? Please.”

“It was Cyan. I watched her kill Blue.”

Had you been drinking water right now, you would have nearly choked to death. Instead you practically screamed. 

“What?!” 

Nobody had seen that coming.

Yellow flinched from the volume of your scream. “Yeah.” She spoke softly. “I was actually scared Blue was going to hurt me, but it wasn’t him. Cyan and I were fixing the oxygen together, and Blue walked in. I thought he was going to kill Cyan and blame it on me, but it was the other way around. I don’t even...” She looked down. “I should have stopped her. I should have seen it coming.”

”How could you? Nobody suspected her. She took care of the kid! Are you absolutely, one hundred percent certian it was her?”

”I swear on my life.” Yellow said. “She killed Blue then ran off. Assumed I would not tell on her because of our agreement.”

You remembered when you had ran into her on the way to the oxygen room. She had been running from the direction of the room, and told you that Blue and Yellow were in there together. She was frantic, which at the time you had assumed was because of the oxygen. You had not seen any evidence of blood on her, but the emergency lights were flashing red and would have hid any blood on her light-colored suit. 

“I know this sounds crazy. I do, I didn’t believe it myself, but it’s the perfect cover. Nobody would suspect you of murder if you pretended to have some moral high-ground.”

You looked at Yellow, trying to discern whether she was being genuine or not. Before you could reach a conclusion, you heard footsteps in the hallway. You were out of time.

”I’ll report it. If anyone asks, you were just about to walk in, ok?”

You nodded dumbly, and Yellow pressed the button.

> **DEAD BODY REPORTED** _(BLUP10)_

*******

Everyone stood around the meeting table. You kept your word, standing next to Yellow on the opposite end of the table from Cyan. Several past meetings you had felt conflicted, but this? This was a whole new level. 

It had to be one of them. Everybody else had been busy somewhere else, and there was no vent in the oxygen room. But who? There had been literally no evidence for Cyan at any point in time, and you had caught Yellow standing above the body. Yet Yellow had known about your messages with the impostor, and had some of her own. And, as much as you did not want to bring personal feelings into this, Yellow was your friend. Just this morning the two of you had shared a deep conversation.

You decided you would try your best to listen for the most part during the meeting, while still providing support to Yellow when possible. Maybe someone would have something to say that would incriminate or clear one of them.

“Where did you find Blue’s body, Yellow?” Black asked.

”He was in the oxygen room.” She looked down at the table. “We both went to fix it.”

”Wait, you went to fix oxygen with Blue, and then you report his dead body?” Asked Purple.

Oh no. You had forgotten about Purple. Purple and Cyan were practically inseparable, you could have sworn you had heard both of them refer to eachother as practically sisters. You were pretty sure that Purple was going to defend Cyan, no matter what. In fact, if you had not know about Yellow, you would have guessed that Purple was Cyan’s ally. And there was no way that she would vote for her, so that was one vote that would definitely not be for Cyan, on top of Cyan’s vote. Every vote counted when there was only seven people, and two were already accounted for. 

“I wasn’t alone.” Yellow looked around the table nervously. “Cyan went with us.”

”I did go with them, yes, but when I saw both of them were fixing it, I turned around to go fix the one in Admin. Blue was still alive when I left.” You could tell that she was nervous, but trying to keep herself from obviously panicking. Lime’s kid looked up to her with concern. It almost looked like she was about to cry.

“No.” Yellow objected with a determined calmness. “Cyan murdered Blue right in front of me.”

The table exploded with murmurs, which were quickly overshadowed by Cyan’s panic.

”W-what? No! I would never hurt anyone, please. Yellow is lying, she’s trying to get me kicked off.” Cyan was crying now, her voice cracking as she spoke. “Why? Please I thought we were friends. You can’t be the impostor... right?”

”What?” Purple was angry now. “No! There’s no way it’s her! She avoids ******* voting because she’s afraid an innocent will get kicked off and she’s taking care of Lime’s ******* kid! Not to mention the fact that she’s literally the only living person who never received a single vote in any poll. Out of everyone on this ship you accuse her? That’s a stupid move, Yellow. Vote her off.”

”To be fair, Yellow has been timid and innocent as well.” Red mentioned. “We can’t just make a decision based on how evil someone seems. People can lie, you know.”

”Do you have any evidence to support this?” Asked White. 

“She arrived down in Admin as we fixed the oxygen.” Stated Black. “I don’t think she had enough time to murder someone and get all the way there.”

”Yellow, however you’re trying to manipulate us isn’t working.” White said. “You picked the wrong target. Should’ve chose Black, she’s pretty suspicious.” 

Black looked about ready to punch White in the face. “I say we vote her off unless someone can corroborate her story.“ she suggested.

You sighed. There was no choice but to step in here. You had not wanted to get involved so you could try to determine for yourself, but you had to give all the information. Regardless of who you thought it was.

”Wait.” You said. “When Black and I split up, I went to go towards the top oxygen. On my way there, Cyan ran past me. She told me Yellow and Blue were in there.”

“So it’s settled then. Cyan left them alone and then Blue died. The report didn’t occur until after Cyan was with us, so it had to be Yellow self-reporting like Green did.” Purple concluded. 

“No!” Yellow defended. “I was scared that if I reported the body... well bad things would happen.”

”Bad things would happen? Like them finding out you’re the impostor?” Asked Purple. “I never trusted you anyway.”

“Please, just listen.” Yellow was crying again too. “She threatened me. If I accused her she’d kill me. I was going to run away and let someone else find it.”

”How could she kill you if she was ejected?” Asked Black. 

“She had someone. Someone else she threatened the same way. If she couldn’t do it herself, she told me they were going to kill me.”

”Who?”

”Maybe it’s Purple. She seems to be defending Cyan more then Cyan is defending herself.” Red scoffed.

”You have no proof of anything!” Yelled Purple. “I didn’t do ****, and neither did Cyan.”

Yellow locked eyes with you for a second, before tapping a few things on her tablet and turning it around to show the group.

”Here.” She stated. “Blackmail from the impostor. They’ve been messaging me for days. You can read through. It even mentions what would happen if I stood up against them.”

”How do we know that isn’t fake?” Purple questioned. 

Against your sense of self-preservation, you stepped in and held out your tablet as well. “It’s not. I have the messages too.” 

“If these are real, and this is a big if, how would this implicate Cyan? It doesn’t show any ID but yours.” Purple asked again.

”In itself, it doesn’t.” Stated White. “But it would be an explanation as to why Yellow didn’t report the body right away when she saw Cyan kill Blue.”

“For the last ******* time, Cyan wouldn’t and didn’t hurt anybody!” Purple slammed her hands on the table, causing Little Lime to flinch. It suddenly got very quiet as everyone stared at Purple. She was shaking with anger to the point that even Cyan, the one who she had been defending, looked terrified. Cyan gingerly placed a hand on Purple’s shoulder who turned around to look her in the eyes.

”Purple,” She started.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” Purple slowly began to calm down. “I just, when they accuse you, I just, you know. You’re family to me. I don’t know what I would do if-”

”Purple.” She repeated, closing her eyes for a moment. 

“Cyan?” 

“It’s between me and Yellow.”

”And it’s obviously Yellow, we’re gonna make them see that. Please don’t freak out, we’ll get you out of this, we’ll-“

”It’s between me and Yellow.” She repeated herself again. “It is one-hundered percent one of us. Everyone else is accounted for.”

“And as soon as we get Yellow out-“

“Purple, please. You know how this works.”

A look of realization flashed over Purple’s face. “No.” She pushed Cyan’s hand off of her. “No no no no you are not going to do that. We don’t even have a way to prove you’re innocent, there’s no confirmations, and no guarantee that they’ll follow through with it. It’s not worth it please let’s just finish the discussion and-“

“If we skip here someone else will die and we’ll have to do it anyway. At least, this way, I can make sure it’s not you.”

”You can’t do this. You’ll die. Like for real, your life over, that’s it.”

Cyan gently pushed Purple to the side and faced the group.

“I’m calling a 50-50.” She said. “You vote me off this time. I won’t fight. No drama, nothing. As long as immediately after you throw me out, you hit the button and get Yellow out.” 

“Wait, she doesn't know what she’s saying, please, don’t listen to her!”

”Purple, please. This is hard enough as it is. Just get it over with.” She looked to her tablet and tapped twice to confirm her vote. “I’ve voted for myself. The rest of you go ahead and vote too.”

”No! Please! Vote off Yellow first! When nobody shows up dead, you’ll know that it wasn’t Cyan!”

You looked down at the tablet in your hands, knowing very well that this decision you were about to make would be perhaps the most important one of your life.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Poll 5: [closed]


	25. [File 24: Conclusions]

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Poll 5 majority- Cyan: (96%)

Despite the many options you technically had, there was really only one choice here. You went for the 50-50, casting your vote on Cyan. A part of you felt bad. For her, maybe, but mostly for Purple. It did not take a private detective to conclude that Purple genuinely believed that Cyan was innocent. It did bother you that Cyan was the one who had suggested it, but perhaps she had hoped her ‘self-sacrifice’ idea would spur others to vote for Yellow. As much as you struggled to see Cyan as the remaining impostor, Yellow had witnessed Cyan’s kill, and proved that Yellow was getting similar threats from the impostor. 

The vote was nearly unanimous again. Only two crewmates decided not to follow through with the plan. There was Purple, which was to be expected. She had voted for Yellow. And then there was Black, who skipped. Upon being asked about this, Black said that after talking to Cyan and Purple for a while earlier, she felt weird about voting for Cyan. What on earth (or, well, what in space) had happened during that conversation to strongly affect Black of all people? You may never know.

There was still one issue left. The follow-through. Cyan’s terms of surrender were that Yellow go next after her, and from what you had seen from the crew, it was likely they would follow that. After all, there was no way to tell that the person that had been ejected was an impostor or not. The only hint was in the messages that at this point you had figured out Cyan was sending. How could you convince them that it really was her and not get Yellow thrown off? 

After the vote came in, the entire group was somber, regardless of the fact that everyone was pretty certain they had gotten it right this time. It was never fun to quite literally send someone to their death. 

“I see your strategy didn’t work out for you.” Said Red.

”What strategy?” Cyan asked, confused.

”Telling the others to vote you off first so that way they would vote for Yellow. You thought we would think you were innocent because you were ‘giving yourself up’. Clever.”

“That’s not...” She trailed off. “Well, you can think whatever you want I guess, but please, just go through with the 50-50 after I’m gone. I really don’t want anyone else to die. I don’t even want to tell you to eject Yellow after me, but if you don’t she’ll kill you. I hate this so much.”

Nobody felt like responding. It was obvious from everyone’s expressions that people were questioning their votes, but the decision had already been made. Yellow had proved to you that the impostor was threatening her, and you trusted her. So if she said that she saw Cyan kill someone, you were going to believe her. This had to be some sort of elaborate manipulation. 

“You can’t do this! Recount the votes right ******* now! It’s Yellow! Or, like, literally anyone else! I trust Cyan with my life, please, you can’t kill her! You don’t understand, we-“

”I bet you’re in on it.” Said White, drawing everyone’s attention to him. 

“What?” Purple asked. 

White continued. ”I bet you knew Cyan was an impostor the whole time. Since the two of you are so close, you were protecting her. She probably got whatever alien bug thing you’ve been saying it is on your last mission, which is why you knew so much about it. You couldn’t bear to expose her so you decided to keep it a secret. You looked the other way while she hopped in vents and killed your crewmates. That’s why the two of you never wanted to separate from eachother. She relied on you to cover for her, and you were afraid she would reveal herself if she was left alone. It’s like some demented fairytale, she turned into a monster and you couldn’t let her go, so you became an accomplice. An accessory in the murder of who knows how many people just to keep this illusion that your best friend still cares about you. But you know what? I bet that isn’t even her anymore. It’s some alien thing, using her body to manipulate you into helping it kill off any humans who come near its planet. The real Cyan is dead, and has been for a long time.”

“No! You’re wrong! Black, please, you met with us, help us out here.”

Black looked at Purple with a concerned gaze. “Purple, I think White is right. You’re grieving, and your mind doesn’t know how to process it. Just think about what you told me earlier. Do you genuinely believe that you two somehow-“

“So you’re calling me insane?” Purple raged, and then turned to look at Cyan. “I should have listened to you. You were right, there was no way anyone would actually believe us.”

”Purple, please.” Cyan said, approaching her. “Calm down. I don’t want them to throw you out too.” 

“But they don’t understand!”

”And they won’t, Purple. There’s nothing either of us can say. I know the truth. You know the truth. We’re both innocent, but I can’t make them believe that. So please, just don’t make yourself a target.”

”I don’t want to lose you.” Purple pulled Cyan into a hug.

“We don’t know what’s gonna happen.” Cyan whispered. “Maybe I’ll find a way to be a ghost and follow you around making spooky noises.” She tried to joke. 

“A ghost? Now that’s pretty far-fetched.” Purple let out a small laugh inbetween sobs. “Aren’t you worried _that_ sounds insane?”

“I think we’re way past insane at this point.” Cyan took a deep breath. “Will you promise something for me?”

Purple nodded.

Cyan tried her best to whisper, but it was pointless with the interconnected suit radios. ”Promise me you’ll get home safe. As soon as you find a way back, you go.”

”But what if-“

”No buts. I’ll be ok. I’ve always loved space, right?”

The two hugged eachother for a while in silence. The only sound being soft sniffles coming from each of them.

”It’s time.” Black eventually said. “Cyan?” 

You had expected Purple to stop Black in some sort of angry outburst, but before Purple even had a chance to say anything, a small yell rang out across the room.

”Waaaaaaiiiitttt!”

You turned to see Little Lime running from where he had been standing with White across the room. He made a beeline for Cyan and once again clasped onto her leg with the force of a wild monkey.

“Please don’t go!” 

Cyan looked down at the child in suprise. “Hm?”

”They’re making you go somewhere, aren’t they?”

Cyan looked around uncomfortably. How on earth was she supposed to explain this to this kid, who had already lost his dad.

Black walked over to the kid and gently tried to lead him away. “Cyan did some bad things.” She said. “She has to go somewhere where she can’t do any bad things anymore.”

”She didn’t do any bad stuff!” Little Lime squirmed out of Black’s grip. “She’s my best friend!”

Black once again approached the child, but he slapped her away. 

“I... I have to go, buddy.” Cyan awkwardly tried to console the child. “I’m gonna go see your dad.”

”Stop lying.” The kid said. “I told you, I know my dad’s dead. He’s with the angels now.”

“Can we just...” She tried to hold back a sob. “If I could tell him anything for you, what would it be?”

The child thought for a moment. “Tell him I love him so much and really really miss him.”

”Alright.” She tried to smile. “Just, when you miss me, think about that. Me telling your dad how much you miss him.”

The child looked at the floor and you watched him start to shake before he hesitantly spoke. “Are you going to be with the angels too?”

This kid was too smart for his own good. 

“We’ll see.” She said. “But I want you to be really good to all my friends, ok? Purple is really good at being a friend, maybe even better than me!”

”But I want to be with you!” The tears were flowing now. 

“I know, but it’s more important you stay safe, Ok? Purple needs you to be her friend, she’s gonna be sad when I go too. Will you give her a big hug for me?”

Little Lime looked over to Purple, and then back at Cyan. 

“Please? It would make me really happy.”

Slowly, the child nodded and gave Cyan one last squeeze before running over to Purple. Purple promptly scooped up Little Lime into her arms and held him close.

”You two take good care of eachother.” Cyan looked at them fondly. 

“We will.” Purple answered, helmet completely stained with tears at this point. 

Everything was silent for a moment until Cyan turned back to Black and White. She set her tablet down on the meeting table and took a deep breath. 

“Ok.” She sighed. “I’m ready.”

The three of them walked over to the airlock and you turned away, not wanting to watch it happen. As much as Cyan was likely an alien imitating a person, you could tell there was at least some human influence left in her. Nobody dared to say anything as it happened, not even Purple. As much as you were sure this was the right call, you felt for Purple and Little Lime. 

Just a few minutes ago, you had been sure it was Yellow. You could not imagine standing there, watching as Yellow would be flung out into space. The betrayal you had felt when you thought it was her. The feeling of horror when you saw her above the body. You were fortunate, for the time being at least. You had managed to convince the crew to vote off Cyan first.

But you still had to convince them that Yellow was innocent.

As you began to prepare your defense for Yellow as to why she should not be ejected, everyone’s tablets simultaneously made noise. What? It had never done that when someone was ejected before. Everyone scrambled to look, wondering if it was some sort of threat from a hidden impostor. 

You looked down at the screen and gasped. You had no idea whatsoever where this was coming from, but in that moment you did not care. This thing in your hands was proof that the deaths would stop. That everything would be ok. That you, Yellow, and the rest of your crewmates would get to live.

> ” **Victory** ”

You had done it.

Yellow squealed in excitement and quickly captured you in a hug. As horrible as it was that you had gotten here, and as many people as you wished could have seen this for themselves, you took this one moment to appreciate that it was over. Nobody would have to worry about dying on this ship anymore. 

Red, who was on the other side of you, gave a small smile. “Good job.” He spoke, locking eyes with both you and Yellow. “I couldn’t have done it without you.”

”We couldn’t have done it without you either Red, don’t sell yourself short!” Yellow beamed, reaching out to give him a high five. 

You looked over to the opposite side of the table, planning to congratulate the rest of your crewmates. Yet, when your eyes met them, they did not have faces of joy. The very opposite in fact. They looked almost... scared?

From behind you, you heard Red chuckle. This time however, was different. It was unsettling, maniacal almost.

“We make a great team, don’t we?”


	26. [File 25: Consequences]

No. Something had to be off here. 

This was not right. 

You had to have misunderstood the situation. 

“W-what’s wrong?” You anxiously asked the group on the other side of the room, unconsciously sliding away from Red. “Is something broken?”

“You stay away from me!” Yelled Purple, pushing Little Lime behind her. 

No. There was a catch. There had to be.

”Yellow?” You turned to your best friend. “What’s going on?”

She simply looked over to Red.

”Black? White?” You asked, increasingly panicked. ”Why is everyone so freaked out?”

The two of them looked at eachother.

”Gray... what does your tablet say?” White asked.

“I just got some sort of pop up saying we ‘won’. I can only assume that means we got the last impostor out, right?” 

That had to be what it meant. Please, oh please let that be what it means. 

“You can drop the act already!” Purple screamed. 

You looked around the room, seeing panicked faces on one side, and amused smirks on the other. 

“Gray...” Black began. “Ours say ‘defeat.’ We lost.”

“Lost? But how? There’s no way we...” You looked over to Yellow, and a sob caugh in your throat as you tried to speak. “Did you lie to me?”

You waited in silence for Yellow’s response. She began to shake and you worried that she was crying. You reached out your arm to pat her on her shoulder, when she looked up with a huge grin on her face. 

She had not been crying. She was laughing. 

“Oh.” She smirked. “Were you talking to me?”

You nodded fearfully. 

Yellow, or at least whoever you had been calling Yellow burst out into maniacal laughter. “Oh, I’m so sorry. I hate to dissapoint you but I’m not Yellow. She’s gone. Has been for... hm a couple hours now? Yeah seems about right. Such a sweet girl, used the last bit of fight she had to give you a proper goodbye.” Yellow made a mock sad face.

A million questions circled around your brain, but you could not bring yourself to ask a single one. 

“Aww, look Red, they’re confused!” Yellow turned a head to Red with a smirk, before turning back towards you. “That’s adorable.” Red walked over to stand beside this alternate version of your friend. “You see, I’m what you’ve been calling an impostor. My partner Red here is one too. The two of us are responsible for all the murders that have happened on this ship. We’ve also caused most of the sabotages. Oops.”

You finally found your voice, and promptly tried to defend your friend, the real version of her. “Yellow would never do any of that!”

”Oh, you’re right.” The impostor agreed. “The person you know as Yellow wouldn’t. But, you see, the thing is,” it did a little twirl as it spoke. “I may have, Oh I don’t know, hijacked a few things. But this is a good look for me, wouldn’t you agree?”

”Get to the point already.” Red rolled his eyes. “Nobody cares what your human looks like.”

”Oh, don’t mind him. He’s just eager to get back to his partner. Silver, was it?”

Was that why Red had been so freaked out whenever the other crew was mentioned? He was in a relationship with Silver?

”Shut up.” Red grumbled. 

“Oh please, he’s actually such a romantic. He left his human life behind and became one of us, willingly. Just so he could stay with silly little Silver. Silver even tried to convince him not to do it, y’know, before we took over. But that’s what you get when you mess with the alien parasites on an extraterrestrial mission. Human Silver was such an idiot.”

”Hey! Don’t you dare say anything about him!”

“Alright, Alright, Relax.” Said Yellow. “Look, you humans got way too close for comfort. Polus? That’s our home. So, our partner that you now know as Silver got an idea. He and a friend decided to take over some silly little humans. Sadly, his friend was even more of an idiot than he was and ended up getting himself and his human host thrown into lava. So we took it on ourselves to stow away on the ship and wait for the crew to go back to Earth. We wanted to just kill them all then, but nobody would ever know what happened, and they’d send more people to our planet to investigate. So we had to come back to Earth and let the surviving crewmembers do the talking. When they sent another mission anyways, we figured, ok they know now, why not make a scene? So Silver gave the go ahead, told this little impostor here to go for Red, and I paid Yellow a visit.”

”Red didn’t fight much.” Red continued. “He wanted to be with Silver, so I was able to take over immediately. Of course it ended up putting the body out of commission for a bit, but that gave me a chance to pretend to stay unconscious just a little bit longer so I could hop in the vent and kill Orange. Of course I did snag my suit in there, and there was the problem of you finding that, but you seemed to think it looked pink so we went with it. I had Yellow take the piece when you passed out so you couldn’t check and find out it was actually red. I also killed Brown when I split up with Purple to uh... ‘do a task.’ That one wasn’t as clean, but luckily you saw Green in the area. Thank you so much for getting that suspicion on Green, by the way.” 

“I killed Lime when you passed out and Yellow was asleep in Medbay. It’s so much easier to control a human when they sleep. I couldn’t get Yellow to kill the kid though, as hard as I tried. Also Blue was me, obviously.” The impostor Yellow admitted. “I saw Cyan in the area and boom, it was suddenly her fault. You trusted Yellow so much that I didn’t even have to manipulate you too much. You see, I wasn’t controlling Yellow all the time. I did the kills, sure, but Yellow was fighting me. It was cute, actually. So, I had to come up with a way to manipulate her into not voting off my partner Red if he killed in front of her, thinking I was controlling her body. So, the blackmail messages were born! I had Red send them to her, of course. And they turned out in having a double purpose, also ‘proving’ to you my ‘innocence’. I was just biding my time until my energy finally outweighed hers, and what do you know, it was right after your talk with her this morning. She knew she couldn’t fight much longer, so she left you her journal. It’s entertaining really.”

It grabbed Yellow’s journal out of a side pocket she had been carrying it in, and began to read in a mock dramatic voice.

”Dear diary: I’ve been feeling off and bright lights bother me. I think space is getting to me.”

”Don’t read from her journal like that!” You yelled.

The impostor let out a small giggle and continued. “Dear diary: I keep waking up in other parts of the ship with no memory how I got there. It’s scaring me. Dear diary: I’m really confused now, I think I can see in the dark? The lights went off and nothing happened. Dear diary: I fell asleep in Medbay. When I woke up I was in the hallway, the reactor was malfunctioning, and someone was dead.”

”Stop!” You yelled. “Please!”

”Oh but it’s just getting good!” It continued anyway. “Dear diary: I’m getting messages from the impostor. I’m starting to think there’s a reason they’re teaming up with me. Dear diary: I found blood on my suit, I don’t think I’ve gotten hurt lately. Dear diary: I’m really scared. What if I’m the one killing people?” She turned to look at you, her eyes now changed to a disturbing shade of red. “And my personal favorite, one of the last entries in the book; Dear diary: what if I hurt Gray?”

You were now sobbing as the impostor flung Yellow’s diary at you. “You’re evil! You’re- I’m- How could you?!”

The impostors laughed together, creating an unsettling sound that was somewhere between human and monster. A sound that you were convinced would haunt your dreams for the rest of your life, if you managed to live that long.

”Oh we couldn’t do it alone. You were such a big help! You were instrumental in getting Pink and Green voted off. Of course, you had no idea you were helping us, but thank you so much. There’s really no way we could have done it without you. Some might even call that... ‘third impostoring’.”

”I... ended up helping you?” You looked down in shame. You had contributed to this? If you had not gotten Pink or Green voted off, would it have been different? Would more people still be alive? “You’re right. I might as well have been a third impostor.”

”Oh no.” Yellow stated laughing with that unsettling laugh again. “Red, are you hearing this? They are so precious, I can’t. This is adorable oh you poor, sweet little thing.” Red rolled his eyes as he listened to Yellow. 

Your eyebrows knit together in confusion. “What?”

“You see, I meant that literally.” It laughed. “You are an impostor, Gray. Of course, you haven’t killed anyone yet, but you’ll get there.”

No.

This had to be some sort of joke. Or a dream, or something. You could not be an impostor, there was no way. Maybe it was a misunderstanding, maybe...

”You’re denying it, aren’t you?” Red smiled. “Yellow?”

”I’ve got this.” It retuned the smile. “Let me ask you something. Have you ever, on this entire trip, been in the dark?”

”What do you mean?”

”Have you every been somewhere where the lights were off?”

As you thought back, You tried to think of a time when it had been dark. You began to panic as you drew a blank. 

“I thought not. The only time you even thought about lights was when you were with Yellow, who, as an impostor, could also see in the dark. The lights did go off in the crew quarters during that sabotage. You did turn them off to sleep. But you never noticed. Why? Because impostors can see in the dark.”

”But I-“

”And when Brown was atacked. Not killed, but attacked. That, my friend, was you. Alone in Green’s room, you lost control for a bit and crawled through the vent and slashed at Brown. That’s how you got the cut actually, hit your arm on the metal of the vent, much like Red actually. And before you ask about weapons, you don’t need ‘em. We’re not just aliens, we’re shapeshifters. You don’t need weapons, and you can fit into the teeny tiny vents, isn’t that neat?!”

”But what about impostors not doing tasks? I did a medical scan, certainly that would catch anything unusual.”

”As for the scan, that was the very first task you did, right? That means it was before the night where Silver slept in your room. That’s when you, for lack of a better term, caught the murder flu. As for tasks, well it is true that impostors usually don’t do tasks, but it doesn’t mean we can’t. The medical scan, yes, that might be a problem, but otherwise there’s nothing stopping us. And since you didn’t know you were an impostor, you didn’t have the lack of motivation we do. We just don’t see the point in fixing a ship we’re trying to take down.”

“But wouldn’t I know if I had a killer alien shapeshifter thing controlling me?” You asked, desperate to poke a hole in this somehow. There had to be something. This had to be a lie or a trick or literally anything else.

”That’s the beauty of it, you have no idea.” The impostor seemed pleased with itself. “But you, Oh you’re a curious case. The impostor has barely been able to get a hold of you. You must be fighting awfully hard to hold on to control, aren’t you? Of course the alien inhabiting you could just be incredibly weak, but it think it’s more your willpower. Nonetheless, you will break down. They always do. And when you finally give in? You, The Gray everyone knows, will be gone. And it will just be one of us, inhabiting your body, using it to kill countless others. And there’s not a thing you can do about it.”

”Prove it to me.” You demanded, tears still running down your face. “How do I know you’re not lying?”

”Oh it’s so, so simple.” Said Red. “All you have to do is press a few buttons on your tablet. I trust you know how to get into the sabotage app, yes?”

You did not want to do anything either of them was telling you. You refused to give in even the tiniest bit. But you still had to know. You had to see this for yourself, so you opened the app. 

“I’m sure you’ve noticed how there’s another voting screen in there, right? Go to it. It works the exact same, but there’s one small change.”

Confused and hesitant, you launched the corrupted voting screen. As Red had described, it was the same thing, but with one minor change.”

”This uses a modified version of the vitals system. You know, the one that detects who is dead? It’s the same thing but it picks up something else. If you are... inhabited by one of our kind, it will show you. Notice how Yellow and I’s names are red?”

You nodded.

”That means we’re impostors. And oh, would you look at that...”

[Your name was red too.](https://i.imgur.com/o0AMGWR.jpg)

As much as you did not want to believe this, you could not cone up with an argument. Sure, it could be hacked, but that was too convenient. And the lights, the headaches, everything, it made sense. Even though you did not want it to.

”Aha. I see that look of realization on your face.” Red smiled. “You’ve got it now.”

”So what do you say?” Asked Yellow. “Go ahead. Give in. It’s ok. It’ll happen eventually, so why fight it? The more you fight, the more pain you will be in. At least when you give up control, you won’t feel it anymore. Even as I speak I can sense it growing stronger in you. You’ve fought well, but it’s time.”

”No.” You refused.

”Ah. That’s ok.” Yellow seemed calmer than you expected. “I guess you’re just taking the hard way.”

And as she spoke you could feel your head once again begin to pound. It started low, but you could tell it was going to get worse.

”We don’t normally tend to be cruel, but I’m letting you know now, it will only get more painful from here. So, why don’t you stay there. Sit down. See how much longer you can take it, while Red and I take care of your _crewmates_.” It emphasized the final word with disgust, as if it was painful for it to even say.

You had to do something while you still could. Your head was already buzzing and you could feel your entire body start to ache. There had to be something. Some way to save your crewmates. 

And then you had an idea. 

In order for it to work, several things had to fall into place. Your mind was foggy and it was difficult to think, but you were running on pure adrenaline and determination. No matter what, your crewmates were going to make it out of this alive, if it was the last thing you did.

And, it probably would be.

But, in order to go through with your plan, you needed to get both of the other impostors into the storage room. So, as sure as you were that you were one of the last people they wanted to hear from, you sent a message. 

> **GROUP MESSAGE:** _crew/mission 2.018/ GRAP0, BLAP1, WHIP2, PURP12_

* * *

**GRAY** : get out of caf

 **GRAY** : now

* * *

You had not expected them to listen. But somehow, somewhere along the way, Black believed you just enough to heed your words. There was no reason for her to besides your pure confusion. But she trusted you the tiniest bit, and that was all you needed. You watched as she met eyes with White and then Purple, before nodding. 

And then they took off. The three crewmates and the kid ran into storage. The impostors tried to chase after them, as you had expected, but you were faster. As soon as the last crewmate’s foot was out of the doorway, you hit the door icon. The doors for the cafeteria locked with a hiss, leaving you alone with the two impostors.

The two of them turned to you, figuring out what you had done rather quickly. Yellow said something and laughed, but you had a hard time understanding her. The world was tilting around you, and you were beginning to worry that you were going to pass out. 

_No._ You told yourself. _Not yet. I can fight it just a little longer._

You blinked to clear your vision and leaned against the wall for support. 

”I see what you’re trying to do.” Red smirked. “Nice try, but the doors will open pretty soon, and you won’t be able to close them fast enough.”

”Oh, don’t worry, I'm going to open a door.” You looked at the two impostors, who now seemed the tiniest bit confused. “But not the one you’re thinking of.”

A sudden realization dawned on them. Because, you see, the cafeteria was where the airlock was.

Yellow looked at you with an almost intrigued look on her face. “Wow, Gray, I’m impressed. What a well thought out plan, especially for someone who’s struggling to hold onto control of their own body. I’m really looking forward to working with you.” She paused. “And yes, we will be working with you, because there’s one flaw in your plan. You need two people to activate the airlock. Red’s not doing it, and I’m certainly not doing it, so unfortunately your little idea is impossible.” 

And technically, it was correct. You were supposed to have two people to open the airlock, in fact, you were counting on it. 

“You’re mostly right.” You explained. “If I were to go activate the airlock with my tablet, it wouldn’t work. But you see,” You approached the table, reaching out for something that had been neglected. “I have two tablets.” Cyan had left her tablet on the table before they pushed her out of the airlock. “Two tablets means two activation codes, which means I can, in fact, open the airlock.”

The two impostors looked at eachother, slightly panicked. 

You had caught them.

”Any last words before you’re flung into space?” You asked.

”You do realize you’d be ejecting yourself too, right? There’s no way you could close it on time.”

”Yeah.” You said quietly. But at this point you had resigned yourself to the fact that there was no way you were going to make it out of this alive. Even if you managed to hold on tight enough not to get sucked out into space, you were still fighting for control of your body. If you did not eject yourself as well, all of this would have been pointless. The impostor was going to take over, you just had to get out before it did. So you put on a brave face as you met the impostors’ glowing eyes with your own. “I’m counting on it.” 

You pressed the buttons on both tablets simultaneously, and with a violent woosh, the air began being sucked out of the room. The tables and benches flew across and to the airlock, along with you and the impostors. All three of your frantically scrambled to grab onto things, survival instincts kicking in, but it was fruitless. 

First Red was blown out of the opening. Then went Yellow, who lasted a little longer as she thought to hold on to the edge of the airlock. But the force was too powerful, and she was sucked out as well. And finally, when you were absolutely certian that both of them were out and far enough away from the ship, you let go of the lever you had been holding onto and let yourself be sucked out into space.

Every fiber of your being protested, both human and impostor, but you knew that this was the only way, and you made peace with it as you floated out of the ship. Space was so beautiful up close. Between all of the murder and accusations, you had never taken the time to actually gaze into the vast expanse around you. If you had to die, this would not be a bad way to go. You might as well enjoy the view, as your tank had about an hour of emergency oxygen left in it.

Yet, as you were about to press the buttons to close the airlock, you thought of something. The hour of emergency oxygen. The last person to be ejected was thrown out about an hour ago. If you could find Cyan and get her onto the ship, there was a chance that the crew could still save her. 

Thankfully, your impostor vision aided you in this. She had been hanging on the side of the ship, hands clasped around an antenna of some sort. However, you could tell she was running out of air as you watched her grip on the antenna loosen. If you did not get to her quick enough, she would pass out and let go. But how could you get to her? This was space. There was no air to push you around, unless...

If you could find a way to disconnect your oxygen, you could used the compressed air to propel you to her and then back onto the ship. Of course, you would lose your limited oxygen supply, but that did not matter. You were supposed to die out here anyway, so you might as well do it a bit sooner and save someone else.

Taking one last deep breath, you disconnected the hose from your tank and used the air to propel you forward. Quickly, you reached out and grabbed the crewmate’s hand before pushing her back in through the airlock. All of the air had emptied out of the roomat this point, so there was no resistance. At this point she was completely unconscious, but at least you had given her a chance. You threw her tablet in following her as an afterthought, and felt strangely reassured to see that the screen was in perfect condition. No cracks. It may have been silly, but because if that one little thing, you were absolutely certian you had saved her.

When you were sure she had made it back inside, you closed the airlock from the outside. You watched it as it closed, but then focused your attention back on the stars. You could hear Yellow and Red yelling at you, but you turned off your suit radio. It no longer mattered. 

It was peaceful almost. Looking at the stars as everything slowly went fuzzy. You had thought you would be more worried, and perhaps it was the lack of oxygen to your brain, or the alien impostor trying to gain control, but regardless, you were calm. 

If it meant that you saved the lives of everyone remaining on the ship, then you would gladly accept the _**consequences**_.

**\- END...? -**


	27. Statistics & Summaries

This is just something I put together. It gives a summary of each chapter and has some fun stats at the end. The chapter picture is some graphs, which you can see in higher definition [here](https://i.imgur.com/al6ghl4.png)

* * *

**_ Chapter Summaries: _ **

_*please note word/page count is from Quotev’s system. There may be inaccuracies._

**1\. Conscription** (6.7 pages · 2,181 words):

  * You find out you’re headed to space and montage through your training
  * Day 0



**2\. Color-Coded** (5.6 pages · 1,929 words):

  * You arrive at Mira
  * Day 1
  * You are introduced to your commanders Black and White and doctor Pink
  * You are introduced to the voting system 
  * The group votes to continue using colors instead of names
  * You find out a ship from the last expedition is arriving with another crew



**3\. Commencement** (5.1 pages · 1,746 words):

  * You do tasks with Orange, including a scan
  * You then meet up with your crew at the launchpad to prepare for the new crew’s arrival



**4\. Communities** (5 pages · 1,654 words):

  * The new crew arrives and are kinda suspicous
  * Silver is assigned as you and Yellow’s temporary roommate
  * Purple wakes you up for some emergency with Peach



**5\. Confusion** (6.6 pages · 2,316 words):

  * Peach was having a panic attack and whacks you in the nose
  * Day 2
  * The decision is made to separate the two crews
  * Several people, especially Red, are upset about this
  * The schedule changes and you are leaving tomorrow



**6\. Communication** (5 pages · 1,704 words):

  * Everyone does tasks
  * Maroon and Teal are in your room looking for Silver’s tablet



**7\. Continuing** (6.5 pages · 2,216 words):

  * Day 3
  * You launch into space
  * After launch, everyone’s feeling space-sick
  * You see Lime’s kid playing with with Silver’s tablet
  * The reactor almost has a meltdown



**8\. Compromised** (6.1 pages · 2,072 words):

  * Black calls the first formal emergency meeting
  * Everyone freaked out about the reactor ‘malfunction’
  * Cyan takes Silver’s tablet from Lime’s kid
  * Both you and Yellow suffer from headaches
  * The lights go out and are fixed while you’re asleep
  * Red acts kinda sus but then faints in front of you
  * Cyan sees you by an unconscious Red and calls a meeting out of panic



**9\. Consternation** (5.6 pages · 1,951 words):

  * Cyan thought you hurt Red at first 
  * Cyan figures out Silver’s tablet has the ability to sabotage, fake tasks, and orders to kill everyone
  * Black takes it for safekeeping



**10\. Corpse** (9.6 pages · 3,260 words):

  * Day 4
  * You are doing tasks with several of your crewmates 
  * Green struggles with wires in electrical 
  * Yellow assumes Green is colorblind and labels the wires for him
  * After you leave there with Yellow and Brown, **Orange is killed** in electric
  * Black and White find the body and call a meeting
  * Brown has a breakdown because she was very close to Orange
  * Green is suspicous because he was the last one in the area, but is soft cleared by Blue
  * Black and White decide to use the voting system for who the ‘impostor’ is
  * ( _Poll 1_ )



**11\. Controversial** (5.6 pages · 1,995 words):

  * The vote is skipped 
  * Black informs the crew that the ship can’t communicate with Earth anymore
  * The buddy system is established, you are with Yellow
  * Lime and his kid hang out with you for a while and do tasks
  * Red woke up from being unconscious 
  * You overhear a suspicious conversation in the hall about how Pink could have used the vents 



**12\. Confrontation** (7.5 pages · 2,614 words):

  * You talk to Yellow about what you overheard
  * You deduce that the conversation was between Cyan and Purple
  * Day 5
  * You and Yellow go to investigate the vent in medbay
  * Yellow falls asleep while you investigate 
  * You look in the vent to find a piece of fabric that looks pink, and grab it 
  * Purple sees you reaching in vent and freaks out
  * Purple slams you into the wall because she thinks you’ll kill her 
  * Purple says she will not call a meeting because nobody would believe her about the vents 
  * You pass out



**13\. Conniption** (7.8 pages · 2,760 words):

  * An update is rolled out to all of the tablets 
  * You wake up to a reactor malfunction and go to fix it
  * After fixing it, you figure out you lost the piece of fabric
  * You, Yellow, Purple, Pink, Cyan, and Green go to medbay
  * Yellow sends you cryptic direct message to talk later
  * Pink gets frustrated at the amount of people and asks some to leave 
  * Yellow refuses in order to protect you but reveals you were investigating Pink
  * Pink storms out
  * You explain what you were up to investigating Pink
  * Purple tries to explain why crawling in vents is sus, but is interrupted 
  * The conversation is interrupted by a meeting it says Lime called



**14\. Complexities** (6.7 pages · 2,334 words):

  * Lime is nowhere to be found at the meeting 
  * Cyan looks under the table and finds out Lime’s kid called the meeting
  * Lime’s kid reveals that **Lime was killed**
  * Pink gets angry because people are suspicious of them
  * You talk about the fabric you found in the vents
  * Everyone is sus of Pink
  * ( _Poll 2_ )



**15\. Consensus** (8.5 pages · 2,952 words):

  * Nearly everyone votes for Pink
  * The commanders want to lock Pink in a room but the vents are an issue
  * Brown suggests Pink should get yeeted into space instead, and nearly everyone hesitantly agrees
  * Cyan has moral issues with this and leaves with Lime’s kid
  * **Pink was ejected**
  * Purple explains to you and Yellow that her and Cyan have been on a ship like this before, which is why they know about the vents
  * Purple also says that the impostors are aliens of some sort and that there may be more than one 



**16\. Cornered** (6.1 pages · 2,144 words):

  * You and Yellow make the vent in your room unopenable
  * You and Yellow have a heart-to-heart, but are interrupted by a notification 
  * The lights go out but seem to still be working in crew chambers, so you and Yellow go investigate 
  * Yellow uses an ‘emergency override’ on the doors so you can check the other rooms lights
  * The other rooms’ lights seem to be on
  * The ‘emergency override’ stops working and you get locked in Green and Blue’s room
  * You fall asleep on the floor
  * Day 6
  * You wake up to a terrified White in your face 



**17\. Confounded** (8.2 pages · 2,884 words):

  * Black and Green are also outside of the room, and they look shocked
  * You find a cut on your arm
  * Black calls an emergency meeting
  * Everyone thought you were dead because Green reported you as dead earlier
  * Brown says she was attacked last night by something in the vents
  * Everyone yells at and susses eachother
  * ( _Poll 3_ )



**18\. Concentrate** (7 pages · 2,479 words):

  * The vote is skipped but there is sus on Green and Black
  * Brown suggests your cut was because you were attacked as well
  * The partners get reassigned, you are with Cyan
  * The kid comes with you too as he has become attached to Cyan, who is confused why
  * You do tasks with Cyan and Lime’s kid
  * You pass Brown and Green in the hallway
  * **Brown is killed** and her dead body is reported by Green



**19\. Conflicting** _(_ 6.1 pages · 2,125 words _)_

  * Green tries to accuse you of killing Brown
  * You tell your side of the story and everyone is sus of Green
  * Purple explains how Green could have attacked Brown and you last time 
  * Black is sus of Purple so Purple and Cyan reveal they’ve been on a mission before to everyone 
  * Black says to skip but Red urges everyone to vote for Green
  * ( _Poll 4_ )



**20\. Comrade** _(_ 7.6 pages · 2,555 words _)_

  * The majority votes for Green
  * Before being ejected, he tells everyone to look for the sabotage app on the tablets
  * You discover a pattern, that all dead people’s tablets are cracked 
  * Its discovered that the latest update to the tablets gave everyone access to the app, but it’s password protected
  * **Green was ejected**
  * Partners are shuffled again, you’re with Black 
  * You get a mysterious message congratulating you on Green and telling you with one vote you could win
  * The person sending the message is the impostor and wants to make a deal, You live if you don’t sus them
  * They also say if you turn against them, they have someone who will help them get revenge
  * They give you the secret code ‘ _consequences_ ’ 



**21\. Comfort** _(_ 6.3 pages · 2,244 words _)_

  * Day 7
  * You have a very restless night of sleep
  * You think through different possibilities associated with the message you got last night
  * You and Yellow have a deep conversation 
  * Yellow says she feels she is being targeted, and tells you to read her journal if anything happens to her



**22\. Code** (7.7 pages · 2,644 words)

  * You and Black meet up for tasks
  * You finish all your tasks 
  * You figure out how to get into the sabotage app using the code you were given as the password 
  * You try to sabotage lights but o2 is sabotaged by the impostor 
  * Black begins to scan but is interrupted by the oxygen 
  * You pass Cyan headed to admin, she says Yellow and Blue are in oxygen 
  * **Blue is killed**
  * You go to oxygen and Yellow is standing over Blue’s dead body 
  * She intentionally says the secret code 



**23\. Concession** _(_ 9.1 pages · 3,267 words _)_

  * Yellow explains that she is also being manipulated by the impostor and shows you she’s been getting messages like yours 
  * She says she did not report out of fear of backlash from the impostor
  * You decide to team up with her against the impostor
  * She tells you she saw Cyan kill Blue
  * Yellow reports Blue’s body 
  * You and Yellow reveal the messages you had gotten to the group 
  * The group can’t decide if it’s Cyan or Yellow
  * Purple defends Cyan like crazy 
  * Cyan, against Purple’s wishes, calls a 50-50 with her going first, as long as Yellow goes next 
  * ( _Poll 5_ )



**24\. Conclusions** (5.6 pages · 1,961 words)

  * The majority vote is for Cyan
  * White comes to the conclusion that Purple has just been covering for Cyan because she didn’t want to lose her friend
  * Cyan says her goodbyes to Purple and Little Lime
  * You prepare to defend Yellow but get a notification on your tablet 
  * The notification says “Victory”...
  * ...But only You, Yellow, and Red are celebrating



**25\. Consequences** (11 pages · 3,983 words)

  * A whole bunch of stuff gets explained
  * It’s the last chapter, just read this one through



* * *

**_ Poll Statistics: _ **

*Author’s vote (what I thought would be best for plot purposes, not necessarily right or wrong)

Poll 1 (Chapter 10):

Poll opened at 12:40am EST (00:40) Nov 30, 2020, Poll closed at 12:40am EST (00:40) Dec 3, 2020

(40 votes total) _Red: 1 (2.5%), Purple: 1 (2.5%), Pink: 8 (20%), Green: 11 (27.5%),_ **[Skip Vote]: 19 (47.5%)***

Poll 2 (Chapter 14):

Poll opened at 12:30 pm EST (12:30) Dec 8, 2020, Poll closed at 12:30 pm EST (12:30) Dec 11, 2020

(46 votes total) _Black: 1 (2%), Purple: 1 (2%), Red: 5 (11%), [Skip Vote]: 16 (35%),_ **Pink: 23 (50%)***

Poll 3 (Chapter 17):

Poll opened: 06:10 pm EST (18:10) Dec 21, 2020, Poll closed: 1:52pm EST (13:52) Dec 26, 2020

(45 votes total) _White: 1 (2%), Yellow: 1 (2%), Gray (you): 2 (4.5%), Black: 2 (4.5%), Red: 2 (4.5%), Purple: 2 (4.5%), Brown: 2 (4.5%), Green: 3 (6.5%)*, Blue: 3 (6.5%),_ **[Skip Vote]: 26 (58%)**

Poll 4 (Chapter 19):

Poll opened at 12:35am EST (00:35) Dec 30, 2020, Poll closed at 12:35am EST (00:35) Jan 2, 2021

(32 votes total) _Gray (you): 1 (3%), White: 1 (3%), Red: 3 (9%), [Skip vote]: 8 (25%),_ **Green: 19 (59%)***

Poll 5 (Chapter 23):

Poll opened at 1:22am EST (00:22) January 10, 2021, Poll closed at 01:22am EST (01:22) Jan 13, 2021

(45 votes total) _Gray (you): 1 (2%), Purple: 1 (2%),_ **Cyan: 43 (96%)***

* * *

**_ Overall Statistics: _ **

**Shortest Chapter:** 4\. Communities (5 pages · 1,654 words)

 **Longest Chapter:** 25\. Consequences (11 pages · 3,983 words)

 **Average Chapter Length:** (6.9 pages · 2398.8 words)

 **Total Length:** (172.6 pages · 59,970 words)

**Most Popular Poll:** Poll 2 (46 votes) 

**Least Popular Poll:** Poll 4 (32 votes)

 **Biggest Majority:** Poll 5 (96%)

 **Smallest Majority:** Poll 1 (47.5%) 

**Average Majority:** (62.1%)

 **Average Poll Votes:** (41.6)

 **Total Poll Votes:** (208)


	28. Afterword

Thank you so much to everyone who read and followed this story! I was not expecting this to get really any attention, but as of this final update we’re at roughly 275 favorites, over 2,500 readers and almost at 15,000 reads. That’s insane. 

As hard as it is for me to say this, the main story is over. I haven’t yet decided if I want to do any alternate situations, POVs, or endings (let me know in the comments if you would like to see any of that), but if you do see ‘updates’ in the future for this story, it will be something like that. I am sad that it’s over as I’ve really enjoyed writing this and seeing your reactions, but I feel satisfied. I made it all the way through and managed to include pretty much everything I wanted to, and it came to an ending pretty nicely. 

And I would like to say no, you did not fail. (Technically, you won :D) You didn’t mess up the story with your votes. Yes, your votes ended up determining the fate of some characters, and you could have voted off the other impostors, but it was stacked against you. As an author, I have the ability to choose exactly what you read, and even lead you in different directions and towards certian conclusions. Notice how the ‘author vote’ usually coincided with the final vote? It was 100% your choice and I never messed with the votes directly, but I was very selective about what information you as readers got. In short, you were being marinated big time. Oops ;)

Also, side note, I was really curious what would happen if a large group of people ended up voting for themselves. It never happened, but had it, it would have created a very awkward situation where I would have had to find a way for your character to explain why they voted for themself. Maybe I’ll write that as a side scenario aha.

But overall this was so much fun and I loved the live interaction the polls gave me with you all. You are not ‘copying’ me if you decided to write using this format, I am sure I’m not the only one who has thought of this. I’ve even seen other fics for this fandom that use this mechanic which is super cool.

I also wanted to mention the anonymous author thing. Originally, it was anonymous because of just general social awkwardness. I was worried people would not like it and I did not want to get the judgement for that. However, as I wrote this more and saw everyone’s wonderful comments, I began to feel much more comfortable with the idea of people knowing it was me. But, I couldn’t just make it that easy. You see, I love getting my readers involved, and I figured, why not make it a game? Originally the plan was to have you all find a list of hints hidden in my profile, but I tried that and not a single person ended up finding them. To be fair they were probably too cryptic. By the time I figured this out, there wasn’t many hints left to give, so I scraped that part of the idea. So, I devised a new plan, just put the footer of this story in my profile. I also let you all know that I had been commenting on other stories which I think really helped you all find me. It also created this awesome side effect that someone pointed out in their message to me: you all were going around and discovering more awesome stories written by other authors. And that made me so happy. So congrats to those of you who messaged me, and anyone who suspected it was me but was too nervous to message me directly. I’ve revealed myself now, and removed the hint because we don’t need it anymore. But thank you to anyone who even cared enough to wonder who the author was. 

Finally, as promised, here’s some shoutouts to a few big-brained 500 IQ play individuals:

(Just a reminder this was originally published on Quotev, so these are all people from that site.)

* * *

[Mina](https://www.quotev.com/474158362), [WARIO SAYS MERRY CHRISTMAS](https://www.quotev.com/InsertAvengersThemeSong), and [catharsis](https://www.quotev.com/Cristallite) managed to complete the challenge to find and locate the author before I revealed myself directly.

[Yeet](https://www.quotev.com/InsertAvengersThemeSong%C2%A0and%C2%A0https://www.quotev.com/thegirlfallingoffherdesk) and [WARIO SAYS MERRY CHRISTMAS](https://www.quotev.com/InsertAvengersThemeSong) in chapter 20 both correctly guessed that there were three impostors.

[Life Is In War](https://www.quotev.com/GazingAtTheSky)all the way in chapter 5 made a comment stating “Maybe you, maybe you hold the secret of not being you.”

[T.h.i.r.t.e.e.n](https://www.quotev.com/Thirteen13)not only left a comment in chapter 12 correctly theorizing Red actually killed Orange and was taken over by the alien impostor, but also in Chapter 17 once again correctly theorized that it was the reader character who was being controlled by the alien impostor while they were asleep.

There were also several people who made other correct guesses and votes such as those suspicious of Red or thinking Pink was innocent. I fooled many of you though, on Green especially. Also a few people stared to catch on to my main plot twist, and once that theory got put in the comments, we always had at least someone vote for themself.

And even if you didn’t get anything right, I say it took a lot of thinking just to even understand what exactly happened there at the end. The amount of times I had to rewrite some of those final chapters so I, the author, could even understand what was going on was a lot.

* * *

Thank each and every one of you so much for your support and I am glad you enjoyed the story! I hope to see some of you commenting on and/or reading future projects of mine.

With lots of love,

[potato (Quotev)](https://www.quotev.com/peculiarpotato)

[potato (Ao3)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/peculiarpotato)


	29. ...?

As soon as the doors closed, everything fell into chaos.

Black was incredibly worried, should she have really trusted the person who had been revealed to be the third impostor? But the more she thought about it, the more she was confident in her decision. They had told her and the others to run, and then closed the doors to the cafeteria. They had separated the group of innocents from the impostors. Surely that had to mean something, right?

White was not sure what to think. Red? Sure, he had been a bit suspicious. But Gray? Yellow? How had those two been the ones killing all along? Of course, technically Gray had never murdered anyone, but they had still attacked Brown and was an accomplice to the others. He was still wrapping his head around the fact that aliens had invaded not only the last crew, but his own under his nose.

Purple was preoccupied. She could not stop thinking about what had happened to her best friend. No matter how hard she tried, how hard she fought, pleaded, Cyan still was thrown off of the ship. And she was innocent. Of course, Purple knew that all along, but the others? Clearly not enough to keep her alive. Cyan’s death had been horrible and unnecessary, as all of the others, but Purple was affected by this death the most. Had it not been for her promise to care for Little Lime, she would have given up already. 

Little Lime was confused, but not in the way you might imagine. He was a smart kid, and as much as they tried to shelter him, he had a pretty good idea of what was going on. Yellow had killed his dad, he knew that now. It made a lot more sense to him than when they were saying Cyan was a murderer. She was gone now and he was supposed to stay with Purple. But what was supposed to happen now? Now that almost everyone else was dead. Was the- what was it they called it? Impostor? Yeah that. Were those people going to hurt him now? 

Suddenly, an emergency alarm none of them had heard before began to go off. Purple and White looked to Black for an explanation. 

“There must have been a breach.” She said. “The cafeteria is now completely depressurizing.”

”Are they still in there?” Asked White. 

Not even giving an answer, Black quickly rushed into Admin to look at the locations of people on the map. At first there were three in the room, and then two, and then one, who also disappeared shortly after.

”One of them must have gotten the airlock open somehow.” Said Black. 

“But why would they open the airlock? That does not make any sense. If they were trying to kill us all they would mess with something that wouldn’t get them too.” Questioned White.

”I think that’s the point.” Black said after a long silence. 

“What do you mean?” Asked Purple. “Do you think they hopped in the vents and tried to trick us into believing they got blown out into space?”

”It doesn’t show anyone else on the map besides us.” Said White.

“No.” Purple answered. “Do you want to know why I told you to run?”

”To get us out of there, and then you closed the doors.” Said White. “Smart, using the impostors’ own sabotage against them.”

”I didn’t close the doors.” Said Black. “But I think I know who did.”

Both White and Purple looked at eachother in confusion. 

“It was Gray.” Black informed. “They messaged us to run, you can check. I think they wanted to get us out of there and close the doors. They must have opened the airlock too.”

”But aren’t they an impostor?” Asked White.

“Yes... and no.” Purple responded.

“What do you mean?” White asked. 

“You heard how Red and Yellow talked to them. They had no clue any of this was happening. They were fighting it, remember?” Purple explained.

”And that’s why I think they opened the airlock.” Black continued. “They knew that they had to get the impostors out to protect us.”

”Why wouldn’t they hop in a vent or hold on to something though?” Asked White. 

“I’m not sure. Maybe they couldn’t?” Black wondered. 

Purple thought for a minute, looking down at Little Lime, which seemed to remind her of something. “No, they chose not to.” She said.

”Why?” 

“You heard what the other two were saying. Gray was ‘infected’ too. They knew the impostor thing would take over them too, and they couldn’t risk it. So they ejected themself too to keep us safe.”

Everyone was quiet for a while. What were they supposed to say? Gray had only known them for a week and still chose to throw themself out into space to protect them. There was no response to that. 

“Look!” Little Lime spoke up suddenly, pointing at the cafeteria on the Admin map. 

Confused, everyone turned to see what he had been making a fuss about. What they had not expected was to see someone in the cafeteria again, but sure enough there was a little icon that showed someone inside. 

“Do you think it’s Gray?” Asked White.

”I’m not sure.” Said Black. 

Everyone had mixed feelings about this. First of all, there was the possibility that it was not Gray and Instead was Red or Yellow. That would be the absolute worst case scenario. They could probably force the impostor off the ship, after all they would have the majority vote, but there was no guarantee that they would not take anyone down with them. There was also the possibility that it was Gray, which was probably most likely due to dramatic tension, Purple thought. However, if they were ere alive, there was the question of how and why, and if they would be able to continue fighting off the impostor. And there was the final option, that it was simply a glitch of some sort in the system.

Regardless, if someone was still in there, They needed to get to them.

Black volunteered to go first as she was the captian. Nobody necessarily wanted her to go, in case it was Red or Yellow, but neither of the others were willing to volunteer. Black would not have let them anyway, she would have pulled rank and said she would rather face the danger than any of her crew. 

So, after the airlock seemed to close itself and the door locks disengaged, Black carefully stepped in the room. She was not expecting what she found, who she found.

”Purple, you’re going to want to get in here.”

Purple’s heart leapt for a moment, before she realized, no, that was ridiculous. She could not do this to herself. She would not do this to herself. It was likely something else. She had no idea what it could be that involved her specifically, but there was no way. She had to be overreacting. 

She took a few deep breaths before nodding to White and heading into the room. 

Purple’s world stopped right then and there as a sob caught in her throat. 

There was Cyan, her best friend, lying on the floor in front of her. 

“Is... is she-“

There was no way she could be alive. It had been an hour, her emergency oxygen had ran out. No, she was setting her hopes too high. This was just her friend’s body, right?

”She’s alive, Purple.”

The purple crewmate had never felt more joy in her life than in that moment.

”Yeah. Barely, and we need to get her into the medbay right away, but her heart is still beating. I don’t know how she got back in here but...”

”It was Gray.” Purple said. “They must have saved her.” 

Quickly, the group all headed to medbay. Soon enough, their rescued crewmate was in a bed, recieving oxygen and medical treatment. From what Black had said, they had gotten to her just in time. There were still risks, such as brain damage from not having enough oxygen or some sort of injury she had revived while being thrown back into the ship, but she was alive. 

White had found her tablet in the floor of the cafeteria and gave it to Purple to hold. Purple nearly cried again when she noticed that there was not a single scratch on the screen. Cyan was going to be ok. She knew it.

As Purple held Cyan’s hand and Little Lime hopped onto the bed where she was lying, everyone exhaled a sigh of relief. There was a long road ahead, and they had no idea how they were going to get back home, but they would find a way. Nobody else would die.

...right?

Unexpectedly, yet another alarm went off. This one was urgent, and the looks on both Black and White’s faces quickly changed from that of relief to panic. 

“What’s going on?” Asked Purple, anxiety rising once again. “Is it another malfunction?”

”no no no no!” Black muttered as she frantically ran off towards Navigation. 

White began to run off too, but paused for a second when Purple yelled to him.

”What’s happening?”

”The depressurization of the Cafeteria messed witha bunch of systems and threw our ship off course. If we can’t fix it soon, we’re going to collide with a nearby planet.”

”What do we do?” Purple asked, panicking.

”Honestly, I don’t think there’s anything we can do.” White looked down. “Just, get you and the kid, and brace yourselves. Maybe, if we’re lucky, we can survive the crash.”

White ran off in a panic as Purple felt tears run down her face. She had just been reunited with Cyan, and now this? They were going to crash into a planet? But everything was supposedly to be ok now. The impostors were gone. She, Cyan, and Little Lime were alive. This cannot be how it ends.

Filled with a resolution to survive, she grabbed Little Lime and held him close, one hand holding Cyan to her bed. 

They had to survive this. 

They had to.

* * *

On the surface of a snowy planet, not too far away from the falling spaceship, was a group of astronauts. A few of which were looking up at the sky. 

“Do you see that?” One asked. “Up there, in the sky.”

”It looks like a comet.” Said another. 

“Or a piece of space debris.” 

“Maybe. There isn’t much atmosphere here, maybe it will make it down.”

”What are you two looking at?” Asked another voice. 

“Something in the sky.”

”Something in the sky?”

”Yeah, it looks like it’s going to crash into our planet.”

”Well as long as it crashes outside of our zone, it doesn’t matter. Come on you two, stop lollygagging. The cycle’s going to start again soon.”

”Do you think all of that is true? What we read in the logs I mean.”

”Has to be. Now come on, we can’t just stand here staring at comets.”

”I suppose. But it does make you think, doesn’t it?”

”What do you mean?”

”We won’t be the same people we were when we see the aftermath.”

**Sequel** **out now:** consequences: aftermath [(Quotev)](https://www.quotev.com/story/13456585/consequences-aftermath-%E0%B6%9E-among-us-reader) [ (Ao3)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/29055438)


End file.
